Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. said it is prepared to invest up to P820 billion to accelerate the expansion of its toll roads, power and water projects in the country.
Metro Pacific chief finance officer David Nicol said in a news briefing P653 billion would be spent for pipeline projects from 2018 to 2022, while the remaining P167 billion would be allocated for projects that were being pursued by various subsidiaries in toll roads, biogas and logistics.
“The P653 billion are committed investments but if you add the tollroads business, biogas and logistics project that we are pursuing, that would come to around P820 billion,” Nicol said.
He said of the P653-billion committed investments, some P300 billion would be for power generation and distribution, P125 billion for toll roads, P70 billion for railway, P45 billion for water projects, P20 billion for waste-to-energy projects and P13 billion for hospitals.
Aside from Metro Pacific’s equity contribution to these projects, funding for the huge capital spending would also come from equity partners, through project finance and bond offering.
Metro Pacific said for 2018 alone, it would spend P100 billion, or nearly double the P56 billon programmed for 2017.
The bulk of 2018 capital spending would be for the toll road business with P38 billion,, followed by Manila Electric Co. with P21 billion, Light Rail Manila Corp. with P17 billion, Maynilad Water Services Inc. and logistics and hospital units with P6 billion each.
Nicol said while the group was also looking at investment opportunities in the Asean region, particularly in toll roads and water businesses, the company would remain focused on investing in the Philippines.
He said there were plenty of high-quality infrastructure projects in the country that offer investment opportunities under the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program.
Nicol said the group would continue to identify areas where infrastructure was inadequate and would submit unsolicited projects to the government.
Metro Pacific has P200 billion worth of unsolicited projects submitted to the government for review, including the takeover of Mass Railway Transit Line 3, the Cavite-Tagaytay-Batangas Expressway, C5 Expressway project, NLEx Port Expressway and waste-to-energy projects.
Metro Pacific said it expected core net income to hit a record P3.8 billion in 2017, on sustained growth of core subsidiaries.