MPIC sets P60 B capex this year

MANILA, Philippines - Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) expects to spend as much as P60 billion this year to expand its businesses, a ranking official said.

 In an interview yesterday, MPIC chief financial officer David Nicol said of the P60 billion capital expenditures (capex), P15 billion would go to power unit Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), while P12 billion to P15 billion would be channeled to upgrade the services of water utility firm Maynilad, P10 billion to P12 billion for new roads, P5 billion to P6 billion for the rail business, P3 billion to P4 billion for hospitals, and P4 billion for the logistics business.

“That is already prefunded. We have the lines in place. We don’t really need to raise new borrowings on this,” he said when asked about how the company intends to fund its capex program.

 Nicol said the business had been generally good in 2016 with core profit expected to be better than the P11.7 billion target, which was already upgraded from the P11.5 billion announced earlier.

 The conglomerate expects to report full year 2016 earnings by March.

From January to September last year, MPIC reported a 13 percent growth in consolidated core net income to P9.3 billion, driven by robust traffic growth on all the roads held by Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., an expanded power portfolio through increased investment in Beacon Electric Asset Holdings and Global Business Power Corp., and continuing growth in the hospital group.

In terms of contribution to the company’s net operating income, the power distribution and generation businesses accounted for the biggest share at P5.7 billion or 49 percent followed by water (P2.7 billion) and toll roads (P2.6 billion) which accounted for a 23 percent share each.

In May, MPIC strengthened its participation in the Philippine power sector with the increase in its effective ownership in Meralco through the acquisition of  25 percent of Beacon Electric and Beacon Electric’s acquisition of Global Power Corp.

Meanwhile, the hospital group contributed P443 million or four percent of the total while the rail and systems business contributed P135 million or one percent of the total.