The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) on Monday, July 12, approved Filinvest’s real estate investment trust (REIT) to sell shares through initial public offering (IPO).

Filinvest REIT Corporation is set to offer 1.63 billion secondary shares and up to 163 million overallotment option shares at a price of up to P8.30 per share. Should the maximum price and overallotment option be exercised, Filinvest REIT would take in as much as P14.9 billion.

The final offer price will be announced on July 19, once the book building process is completed.

The offer period of Filinvest REIT is scheduled from July 26 to August 3, while its tentative listing date is August 12.

“The third REIT company is set to join our roster of listed firms and we trust that this will send a strong signal for more companies to consider REIT listing as a viable mechanism to raise capital for their expansion plans; as well as provide our investors alternative investment opportunities,” said PSE president and chief executive officer Ramon Monzon.

Out of Filinvest REIT’s offer shares, 10% will be reserved for local small investors, who may subscribe to the IPO through the PSE EASy website.

The property portfolio of Filinvest REIT consists of 17 office buildings on prime property totaling over 300,000 square meters of gross leasable area.

Filinvest REIT president Maricel Brion-Lirio told Rappler on Monday that they have “high quality tenants and a strong tenant mix” in the portfolio.

“Some 88.4% of the leasable area are occupied by multinational global [business process outsourcing] tenants and only 2.8% leased by POGOs (Philippine offshore gaming operators),” Lirio said.

“They belong to varied industries such as banking and finance, health care, information technology, and outsourcing, servicing major continents in the world. These global top BPO companies have been leasing in Northgate for an average of 10 years. For example, Genpact and Concentrix have been with us for 15 years.” – Rappler.com