Listed commercial shopping center operator SM Prime Holdings, Inc. has allotted about P5 billion for the construction of four new malls to be opened next year.

SM Prime Vice-President for finance and administration Jeffrey C. Lim said the company plans to open new malls in Bacolod City, Muntinlupa City, Tagaytay City, and an expansion mall to the current SM City Cebu.

‘The P5 billion will be used for the construction of new malls, as well as for land banking [buying potential mall sites]… The money will be a healthy mix of internally generated cash and borrowings,’ Mr. Lim told reporters.

There are currently 26 SM malls in the country, including its 4th mall for this year, the SM Supercenter Pasig, which opened over the weekend.

Located in a 2.7-hectare property in Frontera Verde on E. Rodriquez Jr. Avenue in Pasig City, the 29,017-square-meter mall will serve residents in the neighboring upscale and industrial subdivisions.

‘A supercenter is a new format that we will be rolling out at a faster rate in smaller municipalities and provinces. This is our way of introducing organized retail services into these areas with the objective of generating not just new markets for SM Prime, but also increased economic activity for these areas with the provision of more jobs and trading activities,’ SM Prime President Hans T. Sy was quoted as saying in a statement.

The SM Pasig Supercenter is a smaller SM shopping mall occupying a smaller floor area. It includes a hypermarket, which is a combination of supermarket and department store, and some anchor tenants like Watsons and Ace Hardware.

Earlier this year, SM Prime launched SM City Sta. Rosa in Laguna, SM City Clark in Pampanga, and its largest mall, the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. Aside from these, SM Prime also opened The Block, an extension of its first mall, SM North EDSA in Quezon City.

Mr. Lim said the company is also scheduled to open SM City Lipa in Batangas next month, making a total of 27 malls by the end of the year with a gross floor area of 3.6 million square meters.

SM Prime opened three new malls last year, including SM City San Lazaro in Manila, SM Super-center Valenzuela, and SM Super-center in Molino, Bacoor, Cavite.

SM Prime earlier said it intends to build four to five malls annually for the next three years in 14 locations including Marikina, Parañaque, Muntinlupa, Bulacan, Tarlac, Laguna, and Pangasinan.

Shares of SM Prime ended P0.30 lower, to settle at P7.80 apiece as of last Friday.