It’s been a fast ascent for college dropout Edgar “Injap” Sia, who less than a decade ago was selling barbecue chicken in the Philippines. He now leads the real estate developer with the best stock gains in Asia.
His company, DoubleDragon Properties Corp., went public in the Philippines in 2014 and has surged 2,500 percent since it began trading in April that year through Jan. 31, beating 460 other Asian developers worth at least $500 million. That surge has inflated DoubleDragon’s market value to 115.1 billion pesos ($2.3 billion), propelling it to the nation’s top five developers even though it owns and manages a fraction of the real estate held by its rivals.
Sia was studying architecture when he dropped out at 19 to start a business venture with classmates. Now 40, Sia ranks among the youngest tycoons in the Philippines. In 2003, he started a chicken shop in Iloilo City before turning it into a nationwide chain that overtook McDonald’s Corp. in store count in 2010. That year, he sold his Mang Inasal chicken chain to Jollibee Foods Corp., and later partnered with its founder Tony Tan Caktiong and with SM Investments Corp., owner of the nation’s largest retailer, to venture into property and malls.
With the same lofty ambitions he used to expand his chicken empire, Sia aims to operate 100 CityMall outlets by 2020 to help meet the basic needs of shoppers in smaller provinces. DoubleDragon is a minnow among Asian developers -- it had $844.5 million of assets in the third quarter of 2016, about 0.6 percent of the assets of Asia’s largest real estate company, China Evergrande Group.
“The stock has outperformed because many investors believe in its business model, which is geared towards addressing geographical gaps in retail,” said Cristina Ulang, head of research at Manila-based First Metro Investment Corp. “DoubleDragon is very focused on penetrating smaller cities that are growth areas of the future. It’s already positioned ahead of the others when growth filters into these smaller cities. ”
Since DoubleDragon’s 2014 initial public offering, the only developers worldwide to beat its gain have been a Venezuelan real estate investment trust and a U.S.-listed Chinese provider of real estate services. The stock surge inflated DoubleDragon’s market value to a record in June that then made it the third-most valuable Philippine builder, dislodging Megaworld Corp., the largest landlord for call centers. While DoubleDragon shares are down 26 percent from their all-time high, the stock may rebound to a new record if the company delivers on mall roll-out and earnings growth pledges, Ulang said.
The stock rose as much as 5.6 percent to a three-month high, outpacing a 0.2 percent gain in the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index.
