First Holdings to raise P6B in bank loans

First Philippine Holdings Corp., the Lopez group’s energy and real estate holding company, plans to raise P6 billion through bank loans to finance its expansion plans, a stock exchange filing Friday showed.

First Holdings said the move to raise more funds, from an earlier projected amount of P5.2 billion, came amid high demand from lenders.

“This was due to the very positive response from the funders resulting in an oversubscription of approximately 150 percent,” First Holdings said in the filing. It said they were now proceeding with negotiations with participating banks before executing the loan agreements.

Last June, First Holdings issued P1.8 billion worth of preferred shares as part of a plan to raise as much as P7 billion in several tranches within the year.

Since it was raising more funds through bank loans, First Holdings said the total amount to be raised via debt and preferred shares would rise to P7.8 billion, instead of P7 billion initially, the filing at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) showed.

First Holdings’ main assets are power generation firm First Gen Corp. and Rockwell Land Corp., an upscale property developer. It earlier reported that revenues during the first quarter of 2014 rose 5 percent to P23.2 billion, 88 percent of which came from electricity sales.

Net income during the period was down 42 percent to P1.1 billion mainly because of an increase in general and administrative expenses of unit Energy Development Corp. attributed to the increase in taxes, licenses and insurance, it said.