Infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. plans to spend P60 billion in 2017 primarily to support the growth of core businesses.
Metro Pacific chief finance officer David Nicol said in an interview that P15 billion would be allotted for power distribution unit Manila Electric Co. while P15 billion would be appropriated for water utility firm Maynilad Water Services Inc.
Another P10 billion to P12 billion was earmarked for toll road unit Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. and P5 billion to P6 billion for railway business.
The group’s hospital business will get P3 billion to P4 billion, while its newly acquired logistics business would receive P4 billion.
“If you wrap up everything, it headed up to roughly P60 billion,” Nicol said.
The P60-billion programmed spending would be on top of the budget for acquisitions and new projects that the group may undertake through public bidding.
Nicol said the capital spending program would primarily come from borrowings and internally generated cash.
Metro Pacific, the local flagship unit of Hong Kong’s First Pacific Co. Ltd., said it was prepared to spend $10 billion in capital expenditures in the Philippines from 2015 to 2020 to further expand its power, water, infrastructure and hospital businesses.
The conglomerate also expects 2016 core net income to be better than its previous projection of P11.7 billion.
Metro Pacific booked a core net income of P9.3 billion in the first nine months of 2016, up by 13 percent from P8.2 billion it booked in the same period in 2015, on the back of strong growth of all its operations.
Meanwhile, Nicol said the company’s toll road unit was now looking at Malaysia for possible expansion.
“I think it is more Malaysia now than Indonesia. There are better opportunities in Malaysia,” Nicol said.
MPTC president Rodrigo Franco said in November the group was keen on acquiring up to a 45-percent interest in a tollway project in Indonesia worth P5 billion.