043007: Filinvest signs deal for school in its farm estate project in Rizal

By Dennis D. Estopace

Reporter

CITING that spending on development is on track, publicly listed property firm Filinvest Land Inc. signed a deal donating land for the Manila Waldorf School Inc.’s education facility in the publicly listed company’s farm estate project in Rizal province. The agreement donating a one-hectare lot that a Filinvest executive estimates to be worth P2 million was signed Saturday in Quezon City. “We want Timberland [estate project] to grow organically. By that time the school’s finished, I think we could expect the number of residents to be in exponential number,” Filinvest assistant vice president Albert G. Morales told BusinessMirror after the signing. Manila Waldorf, currently with 200 students in three campuses, would fund the building of the school inside Filinvest’s Timberland Heights township project in San Mateo, Rizal. According to Morales, who is also project group head for Timberland Heights, the school would be named after Waldorf School proponent and German educator Rudolf Steiner. It is expected to be finished by 2009 and open for the start of the schoolyear that year with 400 students. Documents secured by BusinessMirror reveal that the first phase of the development would focus on building the grade school and high school. The second phase would be the construction of the preschool or kindergarten facilities. Morales said that based on the agreement, the structure could only occupy 40 percent of the total lot area. He added that construction of the facilities would begin this year. Morales said that the agreement falls under Filinvest’s strategy of “naturally growing” the support facilities for the township project, which is a 677-hectare mountain resort town that the company began developing two years ago. Last year, Filinvest president Joseph M. Yap said he estimates the company would spend half a billion pesos to develop the other project’s phases. In September, the company signed a P2.4-billion agreement with an Israeli investor to jointly develop the remaining phases of Timberland Heights. Morales said that the development plan for the mountain mixed-use real estate project is on track, as well as the company’s spending. In the company’s annual report submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange April 20, it posted a 40.27-percent increase in net income of P817.824 million last year compared with P583.015 million in 2005. This was reflected by the company’s revenues last year that nearly doubled to P2.33 billion from P1.86 billion in 2005. After Megaworld Corp., Filinvest posted the second-highest upward change in net income among five companies that submitted their respective financial statements to the PSE’s deadline date. Single-digit growths in income were posted by SM Prime Holdings Inc. (9.53 percent to P5.8 billion) and Ayala Land Inc. (6.23 percent to P4.2 billion). “Farther down the road, we expect the town center which would have small businesses to offer fine dining and other high-end stores. Likewise, there would be a small hospital and other institutions that would be built as the township population grows and according to needs,” Morales said. Morales said they expect the population to be just within the 4,000 household level and that Filinvest would maintain the 25-year development project as a low-density area.

 

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/04302007/economy04.html