Macquarie Group to fund Australian ventures in PHL mining, digitalization

AUSTRALIA’s Macquarie Group Ltd. said it will help finance Australian investments in Philippine renewable energy and digitalization ventures.

The Australian company, a major infrastructure asset manager and investment bank, made the statement in a meeting between its chief executive officer and President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., the Palace said on Tuesday.

Macquarie, which operates in 34 markets and manages 892 billion Australian dollars worth of assets, is willing to raise capital for companies seeking to invest in the Philippines’ energy transition and digitalization push, the Palace said in a statement, following a meeting between Mr. Marcos and Macquarie Managing Director and CEO Shemara Wikramanayake in Melbourne.

“I am excited to talk about what more we can be doing in the Philippines because, at the moment, we do advisory work in investment banks, we bring our balance sheet to invest in,” Ms. Wikramanayake told Mr. Marcos.

“The whole digitization process, we’re excited about. Also, the energy transition we’re excited about,” she added. “We certainly invest in digitization and we invest in energy transition and in mining and building bigger advisory businesses.”

She said the group is interested in working in Southeast Asian markets such as the Philippines, which has “a young and growing population.”

“What we’re keen to do is to partner with Southeast Asia particularly with places like the Philippines, which are proving to be very good to create that environment for the pension savers’ money here,” she said.

In a statement, the Philippine Trade department said the Board of Investments has granted a green lane certificate allowing expedited approvals for the 1.3-gigawatt floating solar project that Macquarie Group is financing.

“Macquarie Group has established a substantial presence in the Philippines over the past 15 years with over 1,000 employees directly under its Macquarie Offshore Services,” it said.

The company’s infrastructure and real assets arm manages funds that support over 5,000 Philippine jobs, it added.

On Monday, the Philippines obtained $1.5 billion (around P86 billion) worth of investment commitments from at least 14 Australian companies, with the administration seeking to boost economic and security ties with Australia in the face of an increasingly aggressive China.

Mr. Marcos arrived in Canberra on Sunday for a three-day summit between Australia and Southeast Asian leaders.

Foreign investment pledges to the Philippines hit P394.45 billion in three months to December, the largest in the previous three quarters in 2023, 2.3 times the year-earlier level. —