Manila Water inks P2.5 B loan for Laguna unit

MANILA, Philippines — Laguna Water Corp., a unit of Ayala-led Manila Water Co. Inc., has secured P2.5 billion in loans to fund its projects.

In a regulatory filing, Manila Water said it signed a P2.5 billion 10-year term-loan facility with the Bank of the Philippine Islands.

“The loan will be used to partially finance Laguna Water’s capital expenditure program,” the company said.

Laguna Water is the concessionaire of the provincial government of Laguna under a 25-year contract for the construction, management, operation and maintenance of the water and wastewater facilities in the concession area.

Laguna only had 14 percent connected to the pipe system and the intermittent water supply, poor water quality, and systems loss is placed at 48 percent.

Laguna Water, the biggest business of Manila Water outside Metro Manila, has over 130,000 connections from the 17,000 connections it had when it started the concession agreement in 2009.

The company began operations as early as 2004, but it was only in 2009 that its operations took off to become Laguna’s largest water service provider.