AboitizPower lists P3-B bonds

MANILA, Philippines - Aboitiz Power Corp. started trading yesterday P3-billion worth of fixed-rate retail bonds at the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx).

The AP Series A Bonds due 2027, the first tranche of the company’s P30-billion retail bonds, will be traded on the secondary market with a fixed interest rate of 5.3367 percent per annum. The bonds will mature on July 3, 2027.

During the listing ceremony,  AboitizPower CFO Liza Luv Montelibano said the P30-billion retail bonds “will provide us the needed agility to take on initiatives that will bring us faster into achieving our goal of reaching 4,000-megawatt (MW) of net sellable capacity by 2020.”

“AboitizPower continues to be committed to achieving reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable power supply. We believe that by achieving this right balance, we will be poised to help the country achieve energy security to push its continued development,” she said.

“We are driven to push the company’s growth by taking on projects and seizing opportunities as they come,” the company official added.

With the P30-billion shelf registration program of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the AboitizPower Group stands ready to finance new investments when opportunities rise, Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. CFO Manuel Lozano said in the same event.

“We’re looking (at prospects) but nothing specific. The only one we’re beginning construction is GN Power Dinginin, and that one started construction this year. The rest, we just started exploring, probably some hydropower are also in the pipeline. But aside from that, whether solar or other projects, we’re still exploring,” he said.

In March, AboitizPower announced it is raising up to P30 billion through the issuance of fixed-rate retail bonds in tranches, of which the first P3-billion tranche was approved by the SEC last June 19.

This will bankroll current projects under construction. This year, AboitizPower is looking to complete five projects with a total capacity of 828.3 MW, including the 69-MW Manolo Fortich hydropower plant in Bukidnon and the 8.5-MW Maris Canal hydro project in Isabela through its subsidiary SN AboitizPower.

Together with its partners, AboitizPower is also in the process of completing the 340-MW Therma Visayas baseload power plant in Toledo, Cebu and the 400-MW Pagbilao power plant expansion.

It is also co-developing the 2x300-MW coal-fired power plant in Subic, Zambales under Redondo Peninsula Energy Inc. (RP Energy), targeted to go online by mid-2020.

The balance of the P30-billion bonds shall be lodged under shelf registration and may be raised in future tranches, the company said.

With the latest listing, Aboitiz-Power and Aboitiz Equity Ventures’ combined level of outstanding securities listed on PDEx stands at P45 billion. This represents six percent of the total corporate fixed-income issues in this registered market.

PDEx said this marked the 15th listing for the year, bringing the year-to-date total of new listings to P110.38 billion, an increase of 555 percent from the same period last year; while the total level of tradable corporate debt instruments reaches P711.09 billion comprised of 120 securities from 45 companies.