Tovic Salvador

Article (news)

Salve Ibaňez

ABS-CBN News

<div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ec5WQQysAlo?&wmode=opaque&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>MANILA &mdash; Megawide Construction Corp. expects its order book to swell to an all-time high of P60 billion to P70 billion by the end of the year, from P47.5 billion at the end of June &mdash; and the surge is coming from the least glamorous corner of the real estate market: socialized housing.&nbsp;&quot;We are looking at an all-time high order book by the end of the year for socialized housing&hellip;Modesty aside, this is one of our busiest times,&quot; chairman and CEO Edgar Saavedra told The Boardroom on ANC. &nbsp;The move to socialized housing underpins Megawide&rsquo;s guidance of P1.2 billion in net income this year and P1.8 billion in 2027, and a deliberate shift in what kind of stock Megawide wants to be: a dividend play.&nbsp;&quot;We would rather pay dividend than interest,&quot; he said, noting that roughly P400 million in interest savings now drops to the bottom line.After paying P0.145 per share in August, the company intends to declare dividends every six months, moving to quarterly next year. &quot;Every time we close projects, we do dividends, so investors will be happy.&quot;&nbsp;Saavedra pointed out that the middle-income condominium segment is still in oversupply. Saavedra sees the opposite problem at the bottom of the pyramid.&nbsp;&quot;You will be surprised &mdash; our teachers, our policemen have decent salaries, and yet a lot of them don&#39;t have decent housing. Commonly, you will hear of two or three families living in one house,&quot; he said. &nbsp;Even without factoring in population growth, he said it could take the industry years, even decades, to close the gap. But speed is one of Saavedra&rsquo;s moat.&nbsp;Megawide&#39;s first 4PH tower, Avesta Residences in Imus, topped off just ten months after construction started &mdash; because 90 to 95 percent of each structure, including columns, beams, and walls, is manufactured in the company&#39;s precast plant in Taytay; only the foundations are poured on site. &nbsp;&quot;In the Philippines, we are the only ones who can build pure precast,&quot; Saavedra said, crediting technology patterned from Japan and Germany and foreign engineers who have worked with Megawide for more than 15 years.&nbsp;The company&rsquo;s huge Taytay facility can now produce 10,000 housing units a year. A second factory in Cavite &mdash; 30 to 50 hectares, with a staged investment of P3 billion to P5 billion &mdash; is expected to complete land acquisition by year-end and begin initial operations next year, lifting capacity to 20,000 to 25,000 units annually.&nbsp;Plants in Bulacan, and eventually the Visayas and Mindanao, are on the drawing board, though Saavedra said Metro Manila and its fringes remain the biggest requirement.&nbsp;Saavedra said Megawide&#39;s condominium units, priced at P1.8 million per unit, are comparable to or better than private developments at less than half the market price, with amortization of about P7,000 a month through Pag-IBIG financing.&nbsp;Building 100,000 affordable homes for the government priced at P1.8 million each means P180 billion over five years. Demand has been so strong that &quot;most of our buyers are practically booked,&rdquo; he said. &nbsp;&nbsp;The pivot to socialized housing came about two years ago, when the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and the Pag-IBIG Fund approached the company to join the 4PH push.&nbsp;&quot;It is aligned to our vision, because we don&#39;t always look at purely profit. If we can do something impactful, that will be great.&quot; &nbsp;Pag-IBIG Fund invested P10 billion in Megawide preferred shares earlier this year, after which Saavedra committed to deliver more than 7,000 units.&nbsp;<div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/business/2025/12/17/pag-ibig-to-invest-in-megawide-to-build-more-homes-for-4ph-program-1238" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pag-IBIG to invest in Megawide to build more homes for 4PH program</a></div>With Pag-IBIG sitting on P200 billion to P300 billion, he sees only one real threat: &quot;Money is not a problem. Buyers are not a problem. Construction is our core. The only risk is if there will be some change in policy.&quot;&nbsp;Land acquisition and title consolidation remain the hardest part of any project, he said, with a full development requiring 30 to 40 permits across titling, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, and local governments.&nbsp;Regulators have been stricter on license-to-sell issuances in recent months, he acknowledged, &quot;but it&#39;s tolerable.&quot;&nbsp;Then there are the classrooms &mdash; the business most contractors dismiss as corporate social responsibility. Megawide built 10,000 of them from 2012 to 2015 under the DepEd&#39;s first school infrastructure partnerships, a P12-billion undertaking spread across 1,700 municipalities that at times required carabaos, horses, and bancas to reach the sites.&nbsp;&quot;The margin is small, but 50 pupils benefit every day &mdash; count how many millions over time. Money is important, but helping is equally important,&quot; Saavedra said.&nbsp;Public school classrooms could add &quot;a few billions&quot; more in terms of projects this year, he said, depending on the outcome of the Department of Education&#39;s ongoing tender for its school-building program, which covers more than 16,000 classrooms.&nbsp;

Saavedra tells The Boardroom the precast pivot to socialized housing is now the company's growth engine — with a second factory set to more than double capacity and eventually dividends paid every quarter to its investors.

Saavedra tells The Boardroom the precast pivot to socialized housing is now the company's growth engine — with a second factory set to more than double capacity and eventually dividends paid every quarter to its investors.

Megawide eyes record P60-70B all-time high order book as housing bet pays off

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Megawide eyes record P60-70B all-time high order book as housing bet pays off

Salve Ibaňez,

ABS-CBN News

Published September 03, 2026 04:22 PM PHT

Read More:

socialized housing

classrooms

Megawide

The Boardroom

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