DoubleDragon’s REIT Bonanza: Where the ₱9 Billion Went—and What Could Be REITed Next

 

DoubleDragon did not pocket its REIT windfall. It scattered it across the country. Now investors have a harder question: which of those projects can actually become the next REIT?

When DoubleDragon Corp. sold down part of DDMP REIT Inc. in 2021, it did more than cash in on a mature office landlord. It created a template for how a Philippine property sponsor could turn a completed portfolio into fresh development capital — and then scatter that capital across the next layer of assets it hoped would define its future.

The number was precise: ₱9.0129 billion in net proceeds from the DDMPR public offering. By March 24, 2022, DoubleDragon had fully disbursed the entire amount under its reinvestment plan, according to the final DDMPR IPO proceeds progress report. DDMPR’s 2025 annual report later confirmed that the sponsors had fully implemented the reinvestment plan. 

The strategy was simple in theory and messy in practice: sell a stake in a stabilized REIT, then redeploy the money into projects that could become the next generation of income-producing assets. The proceeds went into a spread of industrial warehouses, office towers, community malls, serviced residences and Hotel101 developments.

But not all reinvestments are created equal. Some are already operational and generating recurring rent. Some are still development bets. Others, especially Hotel101, sit outside the clean REIT-infusion model because the rooms are sold to individual owners and then pooled under a management arrangement. DoubleDragon’s own annual report describes Hotel101 as a sale-and-managed model, where units are sold to third-party investors who receive titles, while the company continues to manage the hotel and share revenue with unit owners. 

The Warehouse Track Looks the Cleanest

The most obvious future-REIT candidate is CentralHub, DoubleDragon’s industrial warehouse platform. The DDMPR proceeds were deployed into several CentralHub sites, including Tarlac, Cebu/Danao, Iloilo, Capiz, Davao, Surigao, Negros, Cagayan de Oro, Tuguegarao, General Santos, Leyte, South Luzon and Boracay.

By end-2025, DoubleDragon reported that six CentralHub sites were operational: CentralHub-Tarlac, CentralHub-Capiz, CentralHub-Laguna 1, CentralHub-Laguna 2, CentralHub-Pasig and CentralHub-Danao. The important point is that three of those — Tarlac, Capiz and Danao/Cebu — were clearly among the projects funded by the DDMPR proceeds.

That makes them the strongest candidates for eventual REIT infusion: they are completed, operational, warehouse-leasing assets, and they fit naturally with DoubleDragon’s stated plan to prepare CentralHub for what could become the country’s first industrial REIT. 

Jollibee Tower Is Already There

Another clean asset is Jollibee Tower. DoubleDragon used about ₱909.1 million of DDMPR proceeds for the Ortigas office tower, according to the reinvestment disclosures. 

Jollibee Tower is not a speculative landbank. It is a completed Grade A office building with Jollibee Foods Corp. as anchor tenant. Under the joint-venture structure, JFC contributed the land and received 15% of the leasable floor area, while DoubleDragon received the remaining 85% as developer.

That makes Jollibee Tower a legitimate REIT candidate in economic terms: it is operational, income-producing and office-leasing based. The caveat is structure. Any future transfer into a REIT would need to account for the joint-venture arrangement and ownership mechanics.

CityMall Is Possible, But Needs More Sorting

The community mall portfolio is more complicated. DoubleDragon’s 2025 annual report says the company had 44 operational CityMalls at the end of 2025, plus Dragon8 Mall, DoubleDragon Plaza Retail and Umbria Commercial Center.

Some DDMPR proceeds went into CityMall projects. At least one reinvested mall, CityMall-Surigao, is clearly operational: it opened on July 28, 2023 as DoubleDragon’s 45th operational mall nationwide.

In principle, stabilized community malls can be placed into a REIT. In practice, the question is whether the assets have enough occupancy, rental yield and scale to justify a dedicated retail REIT or a mixed-asset REIT vehicle. The CityMall portfolio may be REIT-able eventually, but it is less immediately obvious than CentralHub because the disclosure trail is broader and the project-level earnings are less cleanly separated.

Hotel101 Is the Outlier

Hotel101 received a large share of the reinvested proceeds. The funded projects included Hotel101-Fort, Hotel101-Davao, Hotel101-Cebu, Hotel101-Bohol, Hotel101-Libis, Hotel101-Palawan, Hotel101-Guimaras and Hotel101 Resort-Boracay, among others. 

Yet Hotel101 is structurally different. A warehouse can be owned by a landlord and leased to a tenant. An office tower can be leased floor by floor. A mall can collect rent from retailers. Hotel101, by contrast, sells rooms to individual buyers and pools them for hotel operations.

That makes Hotel101 potentially powerful as a platform — it produces property sales, management fees and hotel operating income — but it is not a clean inventory of sponsor-owned rental real estate. In REIT language, the rooms are not simply waiting to be dropped into a vehicle. 

Hotel101-Fort is already operational, with DoubleDragon reporting it as part of its operating hotel portfolio. But because the units are sold and pooled, it is better understood as a recurring hotel-management platform than as a straightforward REIT-infusion asset. 

Hotel101-Davao, meanwhile, was scheduled to open on July 30, 2026, meaning it was not yet operational as of today, July 9, 2026. Hotel101-Cebu had been topped off and fully sold, but the available reports do not provide the same clean confirmation of current operating recurring income. 

The Likely REIT-Ready Shortlist

If the test is: completed, earning revenue and suitable for REIT infusion, the shortlist looks like this:

1. CentralHub-Tarlac, CentralHub-Capiz and CentralHub-Danao/Cebu
   These are the clearest candidates. They were funded by DDMPR proceeds and are part of the operational CentralHub warehouse portfolio. 

2. Jollibee Tower
   Operational, income-producing and office-leasing based, though the joint-venture structure must be considered.

3. Operational CityMall assets, including CityMall-Surigao
   Potential candidates for a retail or mixed-asset REIT pool, but likely need further seasoning, scale and project-level yield disclosure.

The least suitable bucket is Hotel101, not because it lacks business value, but because it is not primarily a sponsor-owned rental property portfolio. It is closer to an operating and management platform wrapped around individually owned condotel units.

The Bigger Point

DoubleDragon used the DDMPR proceeds to build options. Some options are already visible as rental assets. Others are development pipelines. Hotel101 may become a global hospitality platform, but CentralHub looks more like the next REIT machine.

If DDMPR was the first act — office assets recycled into fresh capital — then the second act is likely industrial. Among all the proceeds-funded projects, CentralHub is the one that most closely resembles a future REIT inventory: tangible, leasable, operational and recurring-income based.

We’ve been blogging for free. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us!

Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.