BUILDER Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC) is turning “cautious” on the residential segment as the company weighs economic difficulties in the US and the Europe debt crisis alongside domestic supply concerns, company president Frederick Go said last week.

Go said RLC will also hold back from acquiring new properties for residential projects, noting that it has adequate land to support new developments “for the next few years.” Land acquisition efforts will instead shift to the commercial, office and hotel segments, he said.

“Due to the massive supply that has come into the market in the last two years, coupled with the financial uncertainties in Europe and America, we are taking a cautious stance on the residential front,” Go told a business forum last week.

The RLC executive, however, clarified that the company’s residential segment continues to track growth with pre-sales for its 2011 fiscal year ending September forecast to hit P6 billion, or a 27-percent gain year on year.  The builder’s residential division accounts for a third of gross revenues.

“We are expanding aggressively on all fronts of our investment portfolio—be it malls, offices or hotels. This will substantially expand our recurring income asset base in the next two to three years,” Go said.

He said the company is planning to open seven malls through 2013, further bolstering the commercial segment, which is RLC’s biggest revenue contributor at close to 50 percent during the first half of the year.  

Go said RLC is opening three malls and expanding two shopping centers in 2012 to increase gross leasable area (GLA) by 12 percent. In 2013, he said the company is opening four new malls and together with the expansion of existing outlets will further increase GLA by a tenth.

RLC is also aiming to be a significant player in the hotel industry through the budget chain gohotels.ph and the Summit brand. gohotels is opening four additional locations in Palawan, Dumaguete, Tacloban and Bacolod as part of its goal to put up 30 hotels in five years.

He said the Summit brand is also considering various locations in the Ortigas business district and Quezon City both in Metro Manila as well as areas in Mactan Island, Cebu.

For the office building segment, RLC is building two office buildings within the Ortigas business district that will provide 80,000 square meters of leasable area upon completion by mid-2013.

Projects will be partly funded by the P13.6 billion RLC raised via a stock rights offering in the first half. The builder reported earlier that net income in the nine months through June climbed 27 percent to P1.01 billion as revenues grew by a fifth to P3.35 billion.   

RLC, which is 60-percent owned by listed JG Summit Holdings Inc., added 2.3 percent to P12.46 each on Friday’s trading, giving the company  a market value of P51.01 billion.

In Photo: One of Robinsons Properties’ ongoing projects.