Regional airport PPP deal lures more firms

AT LEAST three more prospective bidders have shown interest in the unbundled regional airport project contracts up for grabs under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme which the government hopes to award by January next year.

Representatives of Gotianunled Filinvest Development Corp., one of the five firms prequalified by the previous administration to bid for the project, yesterday attended the prequalification conference along with those of Ayala- led AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. and of the Lucio C. Tan-led Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. (AEDC).

Representatives of four other earlier prequalified bidders — Metro Pacific Investments Corp. ( MPIC), San Miguel Holdings Corp., Megawide Construction Corp. and Aboitiz Infra Capital — were also present during the conference. These firms had already earlier that they were keen on submitting new offers once the government starts auctioning off deals for the five regional airports.

Foreign firms that sent representatives to the conference were Japanese construction firm Taisei Corp. and South Koreabased Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd, which is principally engaged in the shipbuilding and construction business.

The Department of Transportation ( DoTr) last Jan. 25 published an invitation for prospective investors to pre-qualify and bid for five airport development, operation and maintenance projects, namely: Bacolod- Silay, Davao, Iloilo, Laguindingan and Bohol (Panglao) commutatively worth some P108.18 billion.

The timetable presented by the DoTr yesterday showed the

deadline for qualification documents submission is set on May 11, issuance of draft concession agreement on June 1 and bid proposal submission on Dec. 8, while issuance of notice of award is targeted on January next year.

Rolled out during the previous administration of former president Benigno S. C. Aquino III, the DoTr and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines divided the five airports into two bundles: first: the P20.26billion Bacolod- Silay Airport and the P30.40-billion Iloilo Airport, while the second package consisted of the P40.57- billion Davao Airport, the P14.62-billion Laguindingan Airport and the P2.34- billion New Bohol ( Panglao) Airport in a bid to improve attractiveness in terms of project cost and projected passenger volume.

The winning concessionaires will develop, operate and maintain the airports for 30 years.

Qualified to bid then were: Filinvest-Jatco- Sojitz Consortium (Filinvest Land, Inc.; Japan Airport Terminal Corp. and Sojitz Corp.); GMR Infrastructure and Megawide Consortium ( Megawide Construction Corp. and GMR Infrastructure Singapore Pte. Ltd.); Maya Consortium ( Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. and VINCI Airports); Philippine Airports Consortium ( Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Philippines Airports Management Co. — a tie-up of Aeroports de Paris Management SA and TAV Havalimanlari Holdings AS) and SMHC-IIAC Airports Consortium ( San Miguel Holdings Corp. and Incheon International Airport Corp.). The auction, however, did not push through.

In a statement on its Web site, the PPP Center quoted the Transport department as saying that previously pre-qualified bidders will be allowed to submit bids for the projects under the new offer “provided that there are no changes in their legal, technical, and/or financial capacity.”

Last week, MPIC said it is looking for a new foreign partner for the regional airport projects after its French partner Aeroports de Paris pulled out, saying “the unbundling resulted in the individual airport being too small” making it difficult for firms to get acceptable returns.

“With the airports unbundled, we will have a hard time looking for an operator,” Karim G. Garcia, MPIC vice- president for Business Development, said during the conference.

Roman Anthony V. Azanza III, first vice-president of Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc., said the unbundling of the airport deals will push firms to reorganize and look for other partners “fit for the project.”

“Right now it’s a whole new ball game. So we’ll really be starting from scratch… we will probably be exploring all options at this early stage including creating the perfect consortia for this type of bid,” Mr. Azanza told reporters.

“We are exploring the market for again the right partners. One of the big considerations really is the equity requirement. That is a major hurdle for smaller airport bids of this nature because in the prior iteration of the larger bundled airports you can still attract the big global players,” he added.

“It’s fair to say that, certainly, we are trying to find the right consortium at this point. It’s a new deal altogether, so it’s a good chance to recalibrate what kind of partner we’re looking at for this type of deal.”

MPIC is one of three main Philippine units of Hong Kongbased First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being PLDT, Inc. and Philex Mining Corp. Hastings Holdings, Inc. — a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. — maintains interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. —