The controversial police report saying a gas build-up caused the Glorietta 2 explosion is not likely to rock the stock price of Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), the country’s biggest real-estate company.

That is the analysis of Jose Vistan of the stock brokerage firm AB Capital. He added that the market has already priced in the negative impact of the explosion right after the incident in October 2007, when 11 persons were killed and more than 100 were injured.

The potential slip in Ayala Land stock price also may have been mitigated by the rebound of the stock market on Thursday. Performance was pulled up by gains posted by Wall Street overnight, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up almost 150 points, analysts said.

The Philippine Stock Exchange composite index closed 1.13 percent to 3,454.60 points higher, while Ayala Land’s share price was stronger by P0.50 or 3.51 percent to P14.75, compared to the previous day’s close.

Vistan said the market “expected” the outcome of the police findings. The long-term effect of the lawsuits against the Ayala company are yet to be seen, though, as the “market would have to see the numbers” and how the lawsuits are going to affect earnings, he added.

“But lightning doesn’t strike twice, and [Ayala Land] would have to be more diligent in the [maintenance] of its properties,” Vistan said. “Ayala’s name has been positive for so many years, and one incident may not be able to change that.”

Jaime Ysmael, Ayala Land chief finance officer, earlier said the company is prepared to face the police findings. He added that the company has conducted its own study of the explosion and will come out with the results of its own investigation.

He said preliminary results of their in-house probe did not find anything that would lead investigators to conclude that the blast was caused by a gas explosion or a faulty sewerage system.

Last year, Ayala Land estimated the damage cost at around P100 million. But the loss of revenues from the closure of Glorietta 2 is expected to be minimal as that section of the mall accounted for only 2 percent or P123 million of the total revenues of the whole Ayala Center operations in 2006.

In a briefing last year, Jaime Ayala, Ayala Land president, said earnings from Ayala Land’s mall business represents only about 17 percent of its revenues.

Ysmael said Ayala Land management has the option not to rebuild Glorietta 2 and may opt for other profitable uses for that space, but he did not elaborate.

Initially, the company had planned to rebuild Ayala Center, where Glorietta 2 is a part of, in three phases.

Glorietta 2’s reconstruction involved the development of business process outsourcing buildings and hotels on top of the existing malls in line with its plan to transform it into a mixed-use property.

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