A Prime Line gas station in Liloan, Cebu —CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
MANILA, Philippines – When this reporter met Erik Lim for an interview, it was raining.
For the longest time, wet days have been related to gloom, particularly when their sudden arrival disrupts plans lengthy within the drafting board.
However the 38-year-old CEO of Prime Line Enterprise Improvement Corp., a Cebu-based gas retailer, was all smiles throughout his temporary but busy time in Manila.
His firm, in any case, will elevate the curtains of this yr’s preliminary public providing (IPO) stage regardless of what consultants see as a dismal season for equities.
“I at all times hope now we have a crystal ball,” Lim tells the Inquirer when requested about how he thinks the market will obtain their comparatively younger agency. “However you already know what they are saying, proper? If the market could be very low or any form of fundamentals are low … the one method it’s going is up.”
Erik leads the third-generation Lims, who at the moment are working the homegrown household enterprise that seems to be taking the native bourse by storm.
READ: Gasoline distribution play: PSE oks P3.16-B Prime Line IPO
Established in 2013, Prime Line is the holding agency of the Topline Group, whose predominant companies embody industrial gas commerce, logistics, ports, vitality and actual property.
It boasts of a business-to-business mannequin that weaves collectively its subsidiaries to create synergies and guarantee entry to important gas assets.
LIM SIBLINGS From left: Constance Marie, Brigitte Carmel and Eugene Erik
Area of interest market
However conquering the nation’s second most populous metropolis is not any straightforward feat, particularly since everybody appears to be lifeless set on establishing their very own empires in Cebu Metropolis as Metro Manila turns into crowded.
So what’s fueling the optimism for the Lims, who plan to boost P732.62 million from Prime Line’s IPO?
Because the CEO places it, Prime Line is concentrating on a really “area of interest” market that’s dominating the streets of his hometown: bikes.
READ: IPO-bound Cebu gas retailer desires to money in on motorbike inflow
“Proper now, we’re nonetheless targeted on Metro Cebu and Central Visayas as a result of there’s nonetheless a number of alternatives,” Lim says. “Significantly in Metro Cebu, we see that potential as a result of there’s a distinct segment market.”
Because it stands, bikes account for 68 p.c of automobiles in Central Visayas, in response to Lim. This makes it straightforward for them to veer away from the four-wheel market, through which competitors is already robust to start with.
Prime Line addresses this potential demand by Gentle Fuels Corp., its 2-year-old retail arm and the protagonist of the group’s IPO on April 8.
As of this month, Prime Line has put up 4 Gentle Fuels stations throughout Cebu. By their much-awaited IPO, the corporate plans to develop this 5 instances to a minimum of 20 within the subsequent two years.
“If you consider the growth program for Gentle Fuels, it’s really extra aggressive than earlier than,” Lim says, noting that they solely focused 10 stations final yr post-IPO.
Prime Line tank vans ready to ship stock
Again to their roots
Prime Line’s benefit additionally comes from its roots in Cebu, almost 600 kilometers away from its newly opened Taguig Metropolis workplace.
Earlier than the corporate was in a position to transcend Cebu’s borders, Lim and his siblings, Prime Line chief working officer Brigitte Carmel Lim and chief monetary officer Constance Marie Lim, had been steering the ship.
When the three are in the identical room, their distinctive bond is clear once they converse, and particularly when passing the mic to reply questions particular to every individual’s experience. To outsiders, it’s evident that they work with the convenience carried solely by the folks you grew up and shared a house with.
“Prime Line is de facto principally our household—my dad, my mother, my siblings, everybody,” Erik tells the Inquirer in a July 2024 interview. Again then, Erik was on a quick enterprise journey in Manila earlier than going again house to Cebu, the place he had needed to have fun Brigitte’s birthday.
Maybe it’s exactly this relationship that permits them to function Prime Line with care and in consideration of one another’s capabilities.
For the reason that household enterprise was established in 2013, the siblings had been in a position to develop it from primarily being an actual property firm beneath
Topline Properties and Improvement Corp. to the gas retailer it’s at this time.
“Once we noticed the gas tankers fueling the vessels, we mentioned: ‘Perhaps this could possibly be worthwhile—one other enterprise,’” Erik says.
True to the siblings’ phrase, retail and industrial gas commerce has turn out to be Prime Line’s predominant enterprise, with the corporate’s internet earnings hovering by 157 p.c to a document excessive of P90.5 million within the first 9 months of final yr.
Throughout the interval, Prime Line bought 50.8 million liters of liquid fuels, up by 19 p.c.
“Ever since we began, we’ve been rising radically for the previous few years, and we are going to work laborious to proceed that development,” Brigitte shares throughout a current media briefing.
For the Lims, the potential to develop and broaden is the rationale why pursuing an IPO stays a good suggestion regardless of present circumstances. As Erik careworn throughout that wet day in Manila, an IPO is “the easiest way to speed up.”
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