Enter the DoubleDragon

Online casinos and a shifting retail landscape have made Edgar Sia II the Philippines’ newest big landlord.

- Roel Landingin

Edgar Sia II made his fortune a decade ago feeding the Philippines’ appetite for chicken. Now he stands to make an even larger one feeding China’s appetite for gambling. Sia’s company DoubleDragon Properties spent the last few years building, among other things, office towers along Manila’s once-sleepy waterfront. Sia figured he’d lease the space out to call centers and business process outsourcers, key drivers of economic growth in recent years. He estimated that he could collect about $14 a square meter.

He didn’t count on demand from across the South China Sea. DoubleDragon got its towers up and running just as warming ties between Beijing and Manila sparked a boom in arrivals by Chinese eager to open offshore casinos offering online gaming to countrymen back home where casinos are illegal. DoubleDragon’s Meridian Park complex is a 10-minute drive from Manila’s Entertainment City casino complex. Sia found himself not only among the largest commercial property owners in the area, but the only one with new property to rent.

By the end of last year, tenants were signing leases for nearly $24 a square meter. “We were positively surprised with the outcome,” DoubleDragon’s 42-year-old chairman and chief executive says, with considerable understatement. The boost from offshore China gaming is just part of a property push that’s helping turn Sia from fast-food tycoon into one of the country’s biggest commercial landlords.