Top township developer Megaworld Corp. and MREIT Inc. are looking at about three more waves of asset infusions amounting to 520,000 square meters of gross leasable area (GLA) over the next two years in order to hit the real estate investment trust’s target portfolio size of one million square meters by 2027.

During the Philippine Stock Exchange STAR (Strengthening Access and Reach) Investor Day, MREIT Investor Relations Head Andy Dela Cruz said that, because of the time frame, the next waves of acquisitions will be bigger and will already include mall assets.

“It's two years until 2027, and we plan to do an additional 500,000 square meters more, because we're currently at 480,000, so to reach one million, we'll need to do 500,000 square meters. We will do maybe two or three waves of acquisitions by then, and that will already give you an idea of how big an acquisition we will do,” he said.

MREIT is currently raising its authorized capital stock, which will enable it to issue new common shares for future asset-for-stock swaps with Megaworld.

“The capital hike is definitely to open up MREIT’s capacity to do again… a property for share swap,” Dela Cruz said, explaining that a swap is still the preferred mode for asset acquisition given the tax incentives. The capital hike will set the stage for wave four of asset infusions into MREIT.

“We're already deep into the review and due diligence for the next set of properties, and we expect to make a formal announcement soon for this… and the target to reach 600,000 square meters by year’s end.

“As we've said, there is scope to exceed that. But we want to be very clear that the process is still ongoing, and we'll announce the details once we are through with due diligence and everything is finalized,” Dela Cruz said.

He noted that, “We are already starting to look at retail assets. The goal of reaching one million square meters will definitely already include retail spaces.”

MREIT is raising its authorized capital stock by 60 percent to ₱8 billion from ₱5 billion to support the company’s growth, “by facilitating the infusion of additional assets under management.

This comes after Megaworld unloaded ₱1.17 billion worth of MREIT shares last month, also to make room for another batch of asset-for-share swap with MREIT.

It sold 84.8 million common shares of MREIT (about 2.3 percent of MREIT’s outstanding capital) at an offer price of ₱13.82 per share under a block sale transaction last July 25, 2025.

MREIT currently has a free float level of 35.51 percent, just a little above the minimum public ownership requirement of 33 percent for REITs.

To be able to infuse more assets into MREIT, Megaworld will need to sell more MREIT shares so it can acquire new shares through a proper property-for-share swap and still remain compliant with the minimum public float requirement.