MVP group plans to jack up stake in NLEx operator to 75%

North Luzon Expressway. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan is set to further increase its stake in the operator of the 90-kilometer North Luzon Expressway as it undertakes a massive two-year expansion of the major tollroad serving Metro Manila, a top official said.

Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. president Ramoncito Fernandez tol

d reporters in an interview that MPTC planned to own more than 75 percent of NLEx-operator Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) by acquiring another 4.6-percent stake of France’s Egis Project’s S.A., which has  been gradually unwinding its interest in the company.

“It will happen in the next three months,” Fernandez said. “It’s a good buy.”

The deal, through unit Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corp., would be a follow-up to a transaction on Jan. 10 that saw the company acquire an initial 3.9 percent of MNTC from Egis for P1.42 billion.

After the planned second transaction, Egis would be left with 5-percent stake, which MPTC may opt to acquire in the future, Fernandez said. The other minority shareholders of the tollroad operator are billionaire Henry Sy’s BDO Unibank Inc. and state-run Philippine National Construction Corp.

Fernandez said the additional shares of MNTC were valued at the same terms of the first tranche, which priced 100 percent of the tollroad firm at about P36.4 billion. This means the additional 4.6 percent would cost about P1.7 billion.

“If you look at Egis worldwide, it really is an expressway operator, they are not into (owning) concessions,” Fernandez said. Egis is part of the Egis Group based in Guyancourt, France. It is one of the world’s biggest infrastructure companies and an operator of roads and airports.

MPTC is in the midst of a P30-billion expansion program for North Luzon Expressway, which covers the linking of the expressway to the port area and then to the Southern part of Metro Manila by 2016.

Vehicular traffic has been steadily rising at NLEx. Last year, it booked around 170,000 vehicles per day, up 5 percent, MNTC president Rodrigo Franco said earlier. Traffic is likely to grow by 4 to 5 percent this year as it opens more roads, he said.