Conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. plans to issue US dollar-denominated debt paper this year.
AEV said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Friday wholly-owned unit AEV International Pte. Ltd. appointed five banks to arrange a series of fixed-income investor meetings and conference calls in Hong Kong, Singapore and London starting January 6.
It tapped The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and Standard Chartered Bank as joint global coordinators. It also named DBS Bank Ltd., HSBC, Mizuho Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., MUFG Securities Asia (Singapore) Limited and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers and joint book runners of the offering.
“An offering of U.S. dollar-denominated Regulation S only senior unsecured notes may follow, subject to market conditions. The notes, if issued, are expected to be unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by AEV and unrated,” AEV said.
The company did not provide other details, including the size and terms of the offering, and the use of proceeds from the planned fund raising activity.
AEV in November reported plans to issue up to P10 billion in fixed rate bonds in the first half of 2020.
The P10-billion bond offering represents the second tranche from its P30-billion bond shelf registration program earlier approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
AEV chief finance officer Manuel Lozano said it would use the net proceeds from the offering to fund infrastructure, food and planned common towers project.
The conglomerate is expanding its food business with the construction of a meat processing plant. It is also expanding the feed milling business.
It has lined up several infrastructure projects, including the 330-million-liter-per-day Apo-Agua bulk water project in Davao and the planned rollout of telecom towers starting this year.
AEV is one of the country’s largest conglomerates with investments in power generation, distribution and retail electricity supply, financial services, food manufacturing, real estate and infrastructure.
AEV posted a net profit of P15.7 billion in the first nine months of 2019, down nine percent from ₱17.3 billion year-on-year, due to lower income contribution from the power and food businesses.