NLEX plans P4 B bond issuance this month
NLEX Corp., the toll road operator of the MVP Group, plans to issue at least P4 billion in bonds possibly within the month, officials said last week.
“We’d like to issue P4 billion to P6 billion,” said Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) president and CEO Rodrigo Franco.
The issue is an initial tranche of P4 billion with an oversubscription option for another P2 billion, with likely tenors of seven and 10 years.
The initial tranche forms part of a P25 billion bond shelf registration filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company tapped BDO Capital and Investments Corp. and First Metro Investments Corp. as underwriters for the planned bond offering.
Proceeds from the bond offering will be used to finance capital expenditures of the company, which has several projects in the pipeline.
NLEX is part of MPTC, which posted a core net income of P1.1 billion in the first quarter, up 16 percent from a year ago.
System-wide vehicle entries grew by 57 percent to 914,152 a day. Traffic on the NLEX alone grew nine percent.
NLEX Corp. has new projects in the pipeline including the P10.5 billion, 5.8 kilometer NLEX Harbour Link to Caloocan City which is targeted for completion this year.
Another is the NLEX Harbour Link Radia Road 10, which is a P6.7 billion, 2.6-kilometer road with completion expected next year.
Yet another project is the P23.3 billion, eight-kilometer elevated NLEX-SLEX Connector Road. Construction is due to start in the third quarter of the year, assuming formal turnover of the site by end- June.
Completion of the longanticipated tollroad is due in 2020, MPIC said.
MPTC expects to spend approximately P122.8 billion in the next five years building highways and tollroads around the country.
“However, the amount of this investment is an estimate that assumes satisfactory reso- lution of various overdue tariff adjustments, now ranging between 20- and 48-percent on different parts of the network,” MPIC said.
MPTC has several other tollroad projects within and outside the Philippines including Bangkok, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The tollroads operator seeks to strengthen its presence in the region.
“Our presence now in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia means we are well on the way to establishing a PAN-ASEAN Tollways Group,” MPIC said.