Sun Life of Canada (Philippines) Inc., one of the major insurance companies in the Philippines, is set invest in infrastructure development, especially in power generation, the company’s top executive said late Monday.
Sun Life Philippines president Riza Mantaring told reporters her company was securing government approvals for a first-ever power investment.
“One of the things that [Finance] Secretary Purisma has been challenging insurance companies is investing in infrastructure. From our side, we’ve been telling the government we want to invest in infrastructure because it’s a great match—long term assets, long term liabilities,” Mantaring said at the sidelines of an insurance forum in Makati.
“So we have been really working on it [because] you need to look on terms
and conditions so finally even from our corporate office, we got approval [for] Sun Life to make its first infrastructure investment,” she said.
Mantaring declined to give details of the project and the company’s partners.
“We’re [still] getting the approvals, until it’s fully approved we can not disclose the terms yet. But it’s an investment in power. We’re doing equity,” she said.
The project will feature a 12-year loan agreement between Sun Life and
private partners.
“[It is a] power plant. Unfortunately it’s not solar, we had been hoping it would be one of those either wind or solar renewable energy [but it’s not]
renewable energy,” she said.
Sun Life’s investment division said the project was expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2018.
Mantaring expressed optimism the company could get the approvals of the industry regulators within the year, after Sun Life Philippines secured the nod of the head office in Canada just three weeks ago.
“From our perspective we got our approval already from headquarters. But we [still need] to get regulatory approvals from the Insurance commission. It’s just have to go to approval processes, but we’re very happy that we’re finally able to invest power in generation,” she said.
The premium income of the Philippines insurance industry grew 42 percent in in the second quarter, on the back of the rapid expansion of the life sector, the Insurance Commission said earlier.
Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc said total premium income grew 42 percent in the April-June period to P116.1 billion from P81.761 billion in the same period last year.
The agency said based on quarterly reports submitted by life and non-life companies, the industry’s total net income in the second quarter also rose 32.7 percent to P10.85 billion from P8.18 billion a year earlier.
Total assets in the second quarter rose 12.8 percent to P1.073 trillion from P951.66 billion in the same period a year ago.
The industry’s net worth stood at P186.57 billion as of end-June, higher than P181.20 billion recorded in the same three-month period in 2014.