Aboitiz pays $320 million to settle loan

MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz Power Corp. has paid nearly half of its $650-million loan which was used to partly finance the acquisition of two GNPower coal-fired power plants in Bataan.

The company said its wholly-owned subsidiary Therma Power Inc. (TPI) prepaid a total of $320 million in loans to various lenders.

TPI is the Aboitiz Group’s holding company for investments in non-renewable energy. “TPI used internally generated funds for this purpose,” AboitizPower said.

In a text message, AboitizPower president and COO Antonio Moraza said the loan was partly used to fund the purchase of the GNPower plants.

The Aboitiz Group acquired beneficial interests from Blackstone Group-affiliated investment funds in two GNPower coal-fired power plants in Bataan for $1.197 billion in 2016.

The acquisition was made through TPI, which bought out affiliated investment funds of The Blackstone Group  – World Power Holdings L.P. and Sithe Global Power L.P. – in GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd. Co. and GNPower Dinginin Ltd. Co., respectively.

AboitizPower said the acquisition cost would be funded by a combination of internally-generated cash and financing from foreign banks.

The acquisition was approved by the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC). The Board of Investments (BOI) cleared the deal on Dec. 19.

Following the completion of the purchase, TPI held an indirect effective interest of 66.1 percent in GNPower Mariveles and 40 percent in GNPower Dinginin.

GNPower Mariveles owns the 604-MW subcritical coal-fired power plant which started operations in 2014.