SM Prime Holdings Inc. will grow its Chinese mall assets to reach at least $500 million before deciding to make a spinoff to attract the bigger chunk of investors.

Jeffrey Lim, the company’s chief financial officer, said SM will have to grow its Chinese assets to about $500 million to $700 million before it can decide on the possible initial public offering (IPO).

SM has planned to spin off its Chinese assets since 2011.

Lim said the company needs to grow the size of its Chinese assets in order to attract more investors that will buy into the company.

“We need to have the size [before IPO]. We have to time that when we do it so that investors will look at it,” Lim said.

At the moment, SM’s Chinese assets are worth about $200 million and Lim said the needed to increase the size to become comparable with other companies in Hong Kong and Singapore.

SM Prime emerged as Southeast Asia’s largest property company after the merger of the Sy family’s real-estate assets in one roof last year.

Lim said the company is looking at building an average of one mall per year in China as the company is looking at two to three locations for its expansion in the coming years.

SM Prime is set to raise some $300 million this year to grow its Chinese assets. Lim said it will be a combination of bonds, with a tenor of five years, and syndicated loans. “It will be for land banking and for development. But we also need funding for the construction of our Tianjin mall, which will open next year,” Lim said.

The Tianjin mall will be the SM group’s largest mall in China, measuring about 540,000 square meters.

SM Prime will also use the fund to build a mall in Yangzhou City as it plans to start the construction next year in time for its opening in 2016.

At the moment, SM Chinese operations contributed some P958 million in net income last year.

SM Prime reported flat net income last year of P16.27 billion, on the back of the 5-percent increase in consolidated revenues to P59.79 billion.

SM Malls in China are in Jinjiang, Chengdu, Chongqing, SuZhou and Xiamen.