A.Brown sets P17B in capex

HOLDING firm A. Brown Co. Inc. plans to invest P17 billion in its energy and infrastructure, real estate and agribusiness ventures in the next five years.
The bulk of the five-year capital spending will go to infrastructure-building and mining/oil segments, where P14.5 billion worth of projects are in the pipeline, A. Brown executive chair Walter Brown said in a statement issued after the company’s annual stockholders meeting in Cagayan de Oro.

For infrastructure, the company is planning coal, bunker, hydro/renewable energy and bulk water while on the resources side, A. Brown will spend on projects to extract precious metals and also for oil and gas exploration.

The company also announced that P1.3 billion would be spent for real estate development and about P1 billion was earmarked for agribusiness, particularly palm oil plantation, milling and refinery.

The projects will be financed through a combination of self-generated equity, joint ventures and partnerships and project financing, Brown said.

For fiscal year 2014, A. Brown reported P738 million in revenue, up by 35 percent from the previous year. Total comprehensive income was P39.6 million, a turnaround from the previous year’s loss of P1.6 million. The company’s total assets stood at P5.87 billion.

Based on the statement, A. Brown was expecting a better performance in 2015, with several power plants coming on stream by the fourth quarter of the year and early 2016.

A. Brown’s palm oil plantation and refinery in Northern Mindanao are also expected to contribute significantly to the firm’s profits as more mature fruits are processed and sold.

The first unit of the two 135-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant of Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) in Concepcion, Iloilo, is seen to be fully operational by early 2016 .

“The project is two months ahead of its delivery schedule,” said PCPC president Roel Castro in the same statement. Planning for the second unit is ongoing.

Castro also reported that the 20.9-MW bunker-fired Peakpower Soccsksargen Inc. in General Santos and the 5.2-MW Peakpower San Francisco Inc. in Agusan del Sur were currently running at full capacity. A third plant, the 10.4-MW Peakpower Bukidnon Inc., will start operations by the second half of 2016.
Future projects include a 15-MW and a 5-MW expansion in General Santos and San Francisco, respectively, and the 25-MW Carac-an Hydroelectric Project in Surigao del Sur, via A.Brown’s subsidiary, Hydro Link Projects Corp.