SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPH.PH), the Philippines’ largest mall operator by sales, plans to borrow PHP4 billion (.9 million) next year to partly fund its capital expenditure, which is estimated at PHP6 billion, Executive Vice-President Jeffrey Lim said Wednesday.

THE country’s biggest mall builder and operator said it will borrow a substantial part of the money required for next year’s capital expenditures from the local market. In a briefing, Jeffrey C. Lim, SM Prime Holdings Inc. executive vice president, said the company will borrow P4 billion out of the P6-billion capex for next year while the balance would come from internally generated funds.

Shopping mall giant SM Prime Holdings Inc. plans to borrow P4 billion next year to fund the continued development of new malls and the expansion of existing ones. SM Prime executive vice president Jeffrey Lim said the company needs P6 billion to fund its capital expenditures next year.

SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (“SM Prime�?) has just expanded SM City Cebu with the opening of its new annex, bringing total GFA to 268,611 square meters (sqm), making it the largest SM mall in the Visayas region. The new wing of SM City Cebu, which will be inaugurated on November 30, 2007 has a gross floor area (GFA) of 107,049 sqm.

At the education summit, held at the Asian Institute of Management, I acknowledged the breakthrough importance of the Commission on Higher Education’s Memo Order No. 39, which standardizes the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration program nationwide. But I suggested that the world it assumed was skewed.

The SM Mall of Asia recently received the Philippine Retailers Association’s Shopping Center of the Year Award during its 2007 Outstanding Filipino Retailers and Shopping Centers of the Year Night held recently at the Crowne Plaza in Ortigas.

Shopping mall giant SM Prime Holdings Inc. will open SM City Taytay, its first mall in the province of Rizal, tomorrow, Nov. 9. In a statement, SM Prime said the newest structure, with a gross floor area of 91,920 square meters and stands on 38,525 square meters of land, brings to 29 the total number of SM malls across the country.

More than 300 tenants of the SM malls in Metro Manila were given until the end of the year to comply with government’s anti-piracy campaign, an official of the Optical Media Board said.

SM was named the Philippines Top Retailer during the recent Retail Asia Top 500 Awards held in Tokyo, Japan. This is the fourth straight year in which SM was cited by this prestigious regional trade magazine, which honored top retailers from 14 economies.

The opening of the SMX Convention Center gathered together an extraordinary mix of government officials, corporate bigwigs, members of the diplomatic corps, and artists and art lovers, recently.