Shares of Megaworld Corporation’s real estate investment trust MREIT soared as high as 6.6% on its debut on Friday, October 1, as investors showed strong interest in the property giant’s portfolio.

On listing day, MREIT president and chief executive officer Kevin Tan said they will further inject prime office and commercial assets into their portfolio by 2023.

MREIT’s initial portfolio consists of 10 prime office buildings covering around 224,431 square meters in Eastwood City, McKinley Hill, and Iloilo Business Park.

So far, Megaworld’s Uptown Bonifacio has close to 331,300 square meters of completed office and commercial projects. Another 70,000 square meters of prime office spaces are set to be completed in three years.

“These prime office and commercial assets can be potentially injected into MREIT. With [Bonifacio Global City] having the highest office rental rates among major business districts in the country, these fresh assets can truly bulk up MREIT’s portfolio, increase its rental revenues, and of course, grow the distribution yields for our investors,” Tan said.

MREIT delayed its listing date from September 30 to October 1 due to “overwhelming demand from investors,” which affected the timely completion of the lodgment of its shares with the Philippine Depositary Trust Corporation.

MREIT’s initial public offering raised around P14.7 billion, proceeds of which will be used for Megaworld’s 15 projects.

MREIT aims to grow its office asset size to 1 million square meters, potentially making it the largest REIT in Southeast Asia.

MREIT outperformed the Philippine Stock Exchange index, which fell by 0.4% on Friday. – Rappler.com