With the Philippines’ consumption-driven economic boom showing no signs of abating, modern retail enterprises are sprouting up outside the capital.
Double Dragon Properties is one of the up-and-comers. In April 2014, its valuation was less than $100 million. Lately, the shares settled at 59 pesos, up 29-fold from the initial public offering price of 2 pesos.
So far this year, Double Dragon’s stock has surged 140%, making it the best-performing real estate company in the PSE’s property subindex. Its market capitalization is now 131.5 billion pesos ($2.75 billion).
Double Dragon’s priority is the construction of 100 shopping centers, each measuring 5,000 to 10,000 sq. meters, by 2020. As of June, the company had secured 53 sites for these CityMalls, as it calls them, but built only eight.
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Double Dragon is led by CEO Edgar “Injap” Sia, a 39-year-old businessman from Visayas in the central Philippines. The self-made entrepreneur is best known as the founder of Mang Inasal, a fast-food company that specializes in grilled chicken.
Born to a Chinese-Filipino-Japanese parents that own a grocery store in Roxas City in Visayas central Philippine region, Sia dropped out of college to focus on building his own businesses. In 2003, he opened a grilled chicken eatery in the parking lot of a mall in Iloilo City, also in Visayas.
In 2005, Sia established Mang Inasal for franchising, creating the nation’s quickest-growing fast-food chain at the time. Later, he associated with Tony Tan Caktiong — the founder of Jollibee Foods, but Sia’s business was becoming a threat to Jollibee.
Tan Caktiong offered to take control of the ascendant chain. In 2010, Sia agreed to sell Jollibee a 70% stake.
(Source: Nikkei Asian Review)