MPTC sets sights on Asean road projects

SINGAPORE—Businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) has set its sights on several major road projects in neighboring Southeast Asian countries as it expands its portfolio.

At a press briefing, the company said it would pursue new projects in Indonesia and Vietnam even as it bids for major road contracts in Luzon and Visayas.

The ambitious plans come after a record 2012, when the firm posted a net income of P1.52 billion, up 16 percent year-on-year mainly on strong revenues from the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), currently the only toll road in the company’s portfolio.

“That entire profit was (paid out as dividend) to our parent MPIC (Metro Pacific Investments Corp.),” MPTC president Ramoncito Fernandez said. “The tollway group is the highest contributor to MPIC’s profits,” he pointed out.

Foreign contracts being looked into are the Dau Giay Phan Thiet expressway project in Dong Nai-Binh Thuan, Vietnam, and the Becakayu toll road project in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Vietnam road project involves the construction of a 98.7-kilometer, six-lane highway linking two key cities in the country’s southern region. This will be the communist country’s first public-private partnership (PPP) project.

The road will have seven interchanges, 15 bridges, 10 flyovers, 19 overpasses and 15 underpasses. As much as 49 percent of the project will be funded by an official development assistance (ODA) loan from the World Bank, while 20 percent will be from equity and 15 percent from bank loans. MPTC said the balance would be funded through viability gap financing, a grant provided to support infrastructure projects that are economically justified but fall short of financial viability due to their long gestation periods.

The Indonesian project involves the two-phase construction of a 21-kilometer toll road that aims to link Jakarta to Bekasi City, a factory town east of the capital. For the Jakarta-Bekasi link, MPTC will likely partner with Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada Tbk PT, a company whose shareholders also control Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. (CMMTC). CMMTC is a partner of San Miguel Corp., which is MPTC’s rival for many road projects locally.

In the Philippines, Fernandez said the company was conducting a feasibility study for a third bridge connecting the main island of Cebu to Mactan, where the Mactan-Cebu International Airprt (MCIA) is located.

MPTC has two options for the new Cebu-Mactan link, the first being a five-kilometer bridge from Gen. Maxilom to Lapu-Lapu. This road will cost between P17 billion and P26 billion to build. The second option, a road from the booming Cebu South Road area to Lapu-Lapu, will be a 7.5-kilometer bridge expected to cost between P17 billion and P19 billion.

Fernandez said MPTC was recently pre-qualified to bid for the Cavite-Laguna (Cala) expressway. The company will also bid for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Expressway project.

MPTC is also preparing to take an equity stake in the Cavite Toll expressway project (Cavitex) through a debt-to-equity swap. MPTC last month lent P6.77 billion to the operators of Cavitex.