MVP revives plan to develop new PLDT headquarters

PLDT Inc. chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan said Thursday the company is planning to redevelop its headquarters in Makati City into a vertical office tower.

On the sidelines of a press conference in Makati City, Pangilinan told reporters that PLDT will be having a meeting with its Japanese partner NTT in Tokyo next week to discuss, among other matters, the plan to redevelop the telco's Ramon Cojuangco Building (RCB) and Makati General Office (MGO).

"It's an old plan but I'm reviving it," Pangilinan said.

As early as 2014, PLDT announced plans to build a new head office in the style of US tech giant Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

The location will have to sit well with company employees—not too far up north of Makati, where PLDT is now headquartered, and not too far down south either.

With the plan to redevelop RCB — PLDT's current headquarters — Pangilinan said, "there has been internal meetings" whether the company should have a vertical campus, in which case, he said "it will slightly be in this area."

"These two buildings (RCB and MGO) will be developed into two towers, you just have to design it in a way as green as possible and plenty of open spaces," the PLDT chief said.

He added that PLDT has chosen a local property company for the plan.

"We will probably house 6,000 to 7,000 people within the building so we'll probably occupy the whole building," Pangilinan said.

"If there are two towers, we probably might sell the other tower," he added.

For her part, PLDT chief financial officer Anabelle Chua said the company is looking at the possibility of disposing some of its properties, which could fetch around P3 billion to P4 billion that will be used as additional funding for PLDT.

Pangilinan said PLDT may tap the funds generated from its asset sales for the redevelopment project.

"Hopefully, within the year we should make up our mind," he said.

"At the end you have to make a choice as to what work environment you want to bring for your people," he added. — MDM, GMA News