Lopez group joins bidding for Mactan airport project

Mactan Cebu International Airport. CDN FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corp. plans to join the bidding for the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport passenger terminal redevelopment project.

Awash with proceeds from the sale of shares in Manila Electric Co., FPH also disclosed on Friday that had it had chalked up a net income of P9.6 billion in 2012 compared with only P2.1 billion in the previous year.

FPH chief information officer Francis Giles Puno told the Philippine Stock Exchange that the company booked a one-time gain of P6.1 billion from the sale of shares in Meralco to the group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan. FPH also generated extraordinary gains of P2.1 billion relating to the consolidation of investments in upscale property developer Rockwell Land Corp.

With a stronger balance sheet in the aftermath of the sale of shares in Meralco, FPH has now expressed an intention to take on more infrastructure projects. It obtained board approval to participate, through a consortium, in the pre-qualification and bidding for the financing, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Mactan-Cebu airport passenger terminal rehabilitation and expansion project.

The Mactan-Cebu project is being offered under the public-private partnership (PPP) program of the Philippine government. Based on a PPP Center briefing paper, the project will involve the construction of a world-class passenger terminal building with a capacity of eight million passengers a year as well as the operation and maintenance of the old and new facilities.

FPH is among the five contenders for this project. The others are: Megawide Construction Corp. in partnership with GMR Infrastructucre Ltd of India; the consortium between Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific and tycoon John Gokongwei; the alliance between the Aboitiz and Ayala groups; and the San Miguel Corp. in partnership with tycoon Lucio Tan.