The Philippine Star

MPIC signs P8-B loan facility

- By IRIS GONZALES

Metro Pacific Investment­s Corp. (MPIC) has signed a syndicated term loan facility amounting to P8 billion.

Proceeds of the 10-year and 15-year loan will be used for debt refinancin­g, MPIC said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday.

Specifical­ly, MPIC said proceeds would be used to partially finance the redemption of the outstandin­g debt obligation­s of Beacon Electric Asset Holdings and for other general corporate purposes.

Beacon is a special purpose vehicle under the MVP Group. Last June, PLDT sold its remaining stake in Beacon to MPIC for P21.8 billion.

MPIC has tapped BDO Capital & Investment Corp. as arranger and bookrunner.

Last December, MPIC secured P10 billion worth of loans from two local banks to fund various projects.

For this year, MPIC has set aside P100 billion for capital spending, higher than the P94 billion programmed last year. The amount is broken down as follows: P38 billion for toll roads, P21 billion for Manila Electric Co., P17 billion for Light Rail Manila Corp., P12 billion for Maynilad and P6 billion each for logistics and hospital operations.

Over the next five years, the conglomera­te is looking to develop P653 billion worth of infrastruc­ture projects as it hitches a ride on the Duterte administra­tion’s Build Build Build program.

MPIC will fund its capex through a combinatio­n of debt and equity.

Of the amount, power projects will get the largest share at P380 billion, followed by toll roads (P125 billion) and rail (P70 billion).

MPIC is also pursuing other prospectiv­e projects on biogas, logistics and other similar developmen­ts worth another P167 billion.

If these prospectiv­e projects push through, MPIC’s capital spending will increase to P820 billion.

MPIC also joined a super consortium of seven conglomera­tes, which plans to submit an unsolicite­d proposal to develop the Ninoy Aquino Internatio­nal Airport (NAIA).

Aside from MPIC, other conglomera­tes in the consortium are Alliance Global Inc., JG Summit, Filinvest Land Inc. , Aboitiz Equity Ventures and LT Group.

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