ALLIANCE Global Group Inc. (AGI), the holding company of businessman Andrew Tan, is allocating more than P150 billion in capital expenditures (capex) through next year on the company’s continued expansion, mainly in its Philippine home market.
“We continue to be optimistic about what lies ahead. That is why we have kept an aggressive capex plan moving forward. In 2010 to 2015 we spent an aggregate of P270 billion for our expansion projects. We will spend more than half of that amount for 2016 and 2017 alone, proving our positive outlook for our business,” said Kingson Sian, the company’s president.
For 2016, the company already said it is spending P70 billion for the group, which include Tan’s crown jewels property developer Megaworld Corp., gambling arm Travellers International Hotel Group and liquor firm Emperador Inc.
That places the capex budget for 2017 at P80 billion.
Tan said during the company’s stockholders’ meeting, its strong operating performance in 2015 only serves to inspire it to continue to do better to accelerate its growth trajectory and maintain its market leadership.
“We have already laid out the foundation and made significant investments across all our business segments, both here and abroad, in order to future-proof our growth.”
“Our group has really come a long way from what we were before. Five years ago, our real-estate arm, Megaworld, covered only five townships, all in Metro Manila. Now we have 21 townships throughout the country, 12 of which are in key growth areas in the provinces,” Sian said.
The company claims to be the biggest developer and landlord of offices for the country’s business-proceess outsourcing industry. The company plans to continue expanding its office and commercial properties nationwide to ride the wave of growth cities all over the Philippines.
Three years ago, Emperador was a purely Philippine liquor operation, where it maintained market leadership. Now it has become a global player in the spirits sector with access to about 100 markets around the world.
“This followed our acquisition of Whyte and Mackay and, more recently, Fundador and the other Spanish assets,” Sian said.
AGI said it is also on track in its expansion program in the tourism sector with the objective of bringing its group-wide hotel-room capacity to 12,000 keys by 2020 from the current 3,000 rooms. Even its quick-service restaurant business through Golden Arches Development Corp. is increasing its number of McDonald’s stores nationwide to ride on the overall improvement in consumer demand. The McDonald’s chain is poised to hit its 500th store this year after about three decades of operations in the Philippine and is looking to grow the number to 900 stores in the succeeding years.
AGI only owns 49 percent of the company, while the group of George Yang owns the rest and continues to operate the fast-food chain in the country.
“Our continued investments have given our group a competitive edge that is difficult to match. With all the pieces already in place, we believe we have set the stage for a strong long-term growth,” Sian said.