AYALA Land Inc. (ALI), the property development arm of the Ayala Group, said it will borrow 30 percent or roughly P4.9 billion of its P16.2 billion total capital expenditure this year.

At the sidelines of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines’s general membership meeting Wednesday, ALI senior vice president and chief finance officer Jaime E. Ysmael said the borrowings will fund primarily its business process outsourcing (BPO) projects as well as the construction and expansion of shopping malls.

Ayala Land will first develop two BPO campus projects this year. The two buildings in the 38-hectare UP Science and Technology Park will add 28,000 square meters of gross leasable area when completed in late 2008.

In addition, the company will  launch its 20-hectare BPO campus project in Canlubang in the second half of the year. Essentially, Ysmael said, the total capital expenditure for 2007 will be funded through a combination of cash and borrowings. Last year, ALI spent P13.8 billion for its various projects.

“We generate a lot of cash through operations, preselling activities from residential projects, plus [we] derive a lot of leasing income from offices,” Ysmael said. “And we also have a big cash balance at the end of 2006. We were sitting on about P9 billion in cash so we can use that plus we will also borrow some more to finance especially the malls and BPO buildings, which are normally financed [at a] 50:50 debt-equity [ratio].”

The construction of a shopping mall in Angeles, Pampanga, will add 70,000 square meters of leasable space. This project is P1.5 billion to P2 billion. Construction time is estimated at 24 months.

ALI, early this month, reported a net income attributable to equity shareholders of P3.86 billion in 2006 versus P3.61 billion a year earlier.

Consolidated revenues, meanwhile, reached P25.5 billion, or 20- percent better than P21.4 billion in 2005, notwithstanding the absence of extraordinary gains from the sale of the investment in the Metro Rail Transit system in 2005.

ALI’s residential development business accounted for the bulk of revenues at P14.0 billion, or 55 percent of total revenues. Its shopping centers accounted for P 4.0 billion of revenues and its corporate business at P1.3 billion.

Strategic landbank management contributed P707 million, while businesses in the Visayas and Mindanao islands generated P168 million. The support businesses—hotels, construction and property management—contributed P3.4 billion to ALI’s revenues.

PHILIPPINE stocks rose for a second day. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) gained after the company said it will spend more on expansion this year.

AYALA Land Inc. (ALI), the property development arm of the Ayala Group, said it will borrow 30 percent or roughly P4.9 billion of its P16.2 billion total capital expenditure this year.

SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SM Prime) reported a net income of P5.45 billion last year, up 10 percent from 2005, the company said Wednesday. Its operating revenues grew 21 percent at P13.2 billion in the same comparable period.

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a nearly $80-million verdict intended to punish the Philip Morris tobacco company for endangering the lives of smokers, and set limits on how jurors can decide to make big companies pay for wrongdoing.

Ayala Corp. grossed P395.375 million from the sale of 145,000 shares in Globe Telecom Inc. at P1,355 each on February 12, 2007 and another 145,000 at P1,375 each on February 13, 2007. The sale reduced AC’s holdings in its telecom unit to 45,042,252 shares, or 34.10 percent as of January 13, 2007 from 45,332,252 shares on September 1, 2006.