Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. said Friday it reduced a planned 2021 capital spending to P14 billion from previously announced P25 billion as the company continued to preserve cash amid a long period of economic recovery.
Metro Pacific chief finance officer June Cherly Cabal-Revilla said during the annual stockholders’ meeting that this year’s spending would focus on essential growth projects with increasing value to the company.
Cabal-Revilla said the company was looking to reduce debt level through refinancing or repayment of more expensive debts.
She said with the strategy, the company would be well positioned to maintain its dividend per share at 2019 levels,
Metro Pacific chairman Manuel Pangilinan said the company remained interested in producing COVID-19 vaccines and boosters in the country.
Pangilinan said the company had its first meeting with Glovax Biotech Corp. However, Pangilinan said the vaccine that Glovax introduced was not yet in the approved list of the government.
“So we are probably at the basement of that process. But we are open to other vaccine producers globally,” Pangilinan said.
“We are also gravitating towards investing the manufacturing vaccine brands preferred by Filipinos,” he said.
Aside from manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines, Pangilinan said the group was also interested in manufacturing other vaccines for other diseases.
The conglomerate reported a net income of P7 billion in the first quarter, up 272 percent from the same period last year, boosted by gains from the sale of assets.
The company recognized a net gain of P4.6 billion from the transfer of its ownership in Global Business Power Corp. to Meralco PowerGen Corp.
Metro Pacific’s tollroad unit Metro Pacific Tollways in February sold its entire 29.45-percent indirect stake in Don Muang Public Company Ltd. in Thailand for P7.2 billion.
