SM PRIME Holdings Inc., the country’s leading shopping mall operator and developer, has successfully completed the issuance of P3 billion worth affixed rate notes facility.

SM Prime said in a disclosure to the stock exchange that the facility arranged by First Metro Investment Corp., had maturities of five years, seven years and 10 years from issue date.

The company plans to use proceeds from the issue to fund capital expenditures and for general corporate requirements.

‘The facility was oversubscribed and 16 primary institutional lenders subscribing to the issue. The strong response by the market to this financing illustrates the high credit quality of SMPH, as well as the local market’s confidence in SMPH,�? the company said.

The shopping mall developer earlier said it would spend P6 billion in capital expenditure this year with the opening of three shopping malls, namely SM Rosales, SM Baliuag and SM Marikina.

SM Prime said it would secure P3 billion from borrowings and another P3 billion from internal fund to finance the expenditure program.

It plans to invest P33 billion over the next five years for the construction of three to five malls a year.

It is also looking to build three to four malls in China over the next five years. Construction cost of each mall in China could reach over Pl billion.

SM Prime operates 30 malls nationwide as of December last year, including 13 in Metro Manila with a combined gross floor area of 3.9 million square meters and an average daily pedestrian count of 2.5 million.

Net income in 2007 reached P6 billion, up 10 from P5.4 billion in 2006.

Gross revenues rose 16 percent to P15.3 billion, mainly due to the opening of three new malls and the expansion of another three.

Rental revenue grew 17 percent to P12.8 from P11 billion in 2006 while cinema ticket sales improved 15 percent to P1.8 billion from Pl.6 billion.