Real estate wars heat up: Gokongwei’s Robinsons Land fires back with P125B five-year expansion plan as GoBio dead set on doubling profits
Robinsons Land Corp., the property arm of the bilyonaryo Gokongwei family, plans to invest between P100 billion and P125 billion over the next five years to expand its property portfolio and double its net income.
As the second-largest mall developer in the Philippines, Robinsons Land is accelerating its expansion efforts to keep pace with larger competitors, SM Prime Holdings and Ayala Land. SM Prime is pursuing a P500 billion, five-year expansion, while Ayala Land has committed $1.3 billion from 2025 to 2029 to develop estates nationwide. These efforts will encompass 96% of the malls and office spaces, as well as 88% of the hotel rooms Ayala Land plans to build during this period.
Robinsons Land will allocate between P20 billion and P25 billion annually as part of its strategy to grow its net income to P25 billion by 2030, according to CFO Kerwin Tan. The company reported a net income of P13.2 billion last year.
This expansion will be financed through internal cash flow, debt, and the sale of leasing assets to the company-sponsored RL Commercial REIT. In 2024, Robinsons Land injected approximately P34 billion worth of shopping malls and office spaces into the REIT, allowing the company to sell shares and raise capital.
Under the five-year expansion plan led by CEO Mybelle Aragon GoBio—the first non-family member to lead the 45-year-old company—Robinsons Land aims to increase its mall and office space by 50%, expand its room keys by 25%, and double its logistics capacity.
GoBio’s strategy also focuses on premiumizing the company’s portfolio. This includes repositioning key assets, upgrading offerings, and enhancing the customer experience across its retail, office, and hospitality divisions.
Currently, premium developments account for 20% to 25% of residential sales. Demand for upper-middle-income to premium homes has proven more resilient than the middle-income segment, according to Chad Sotelo, head of the residential unit.
As part of the plan, Robinsons Land expects to have 69 malls by 2030, with 2.5 million square meters of gross leasable area (GLA), up from 55 malls with 1.7 million sqm of GLA at the end of 2024. Its office GLA will increase to 1.2 million sqm from 793,000 sqm across 32 developments in 2024, with a focus on attracting Fortune 500 companies.
The company’s logistics division will expand its leasable space to 636,000 sqm from 295,000 sqm, targeting large multinational companies and third-party logistics providers.
For its hotels and resorts business, Robinsons Land will increase its hotel keys by 25%, bringing the total to 5,342, up from 4,243. Most of the new hotels will bear the Grand Summit brand.
NUSTAR Hotel, located on a 9-hectare property in Mactan, Cebu, is set to open today as the country’s first ultra-luxury Filipino-branded hotel.
The company will also add two new destination estates or master-planned communities to its portfolio, joining the existing 30.61-hectare Bridgetown in Quezon City and Pasig, the 18.3-hectare Sierra Valley in Cainta and Taytay, and the 216-hectare Montclaire Estate in Porac, Pampanga.
In the coming five years, GoBio will focus on forging alliances, forming joint ventures, and securing co-investments to drive growth, expand its market presence, mitigate execution risks, and leverage the expertise and resources of its partners.
Tags: robinson robinsonland Gokongwei GoBio
