Metro Pacific infra spending to hit P820B

SYDNEY—The Metro Pacific infrastructure group intends to spend up to P820 billion for vital projects such as toll roads, healthcare, railways, water and energy infrastructure in the next five years.

For next year alone, group-wide capital outlays are seen hitting P100 billion, up from some P56 billion this year, as more large-scale infrastructure projects break ground, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) chief finance officer David Nicol said in a briefing here yesterday.

“MPIC, as a group, is a little bit different from some of the other conglomerates in the country because it’s very much focused on fixing fundamental challenges in society and in society’s infrastructure,” Nicol said.

Nicol said MPIC was focused on investing in “high-quality” infrastructure projects. This means “well-built, efficiently run and fairly priced” projects, he said.

Across the group, Nicol noted that about P653 billion worth of projects were already committed, which means they were already approved or under construction. He said the group’s pipeline had expanded from P500 billion two years ago.

On top of the committed projects, he said new ones were being pursued in the following areas: toll roads (P148 billion); biogas (P4 billion) and logistics (P15 billion). These can boost the portfolio to P820 billion.

There is a pipeline of toll road projects worth some P145 billion.

Overall, Nicol said 67 percent of toll roads projects were still in the Philippines even while the group is building a pan-Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) footprint with the toll way group’s investments in Thailand, Vietnam and, most recently, Indonesia. He said the group had now become the largest private sector toll road operator in the Asean.

For energy, it has P400 billion worth of investments in the pipeline involving power generation and distribution.

Manila Electric Co. and Global Business Power have committed P380 billion worth of power projects while the group was developing a P20-billion waste-to-energy project in Quezon City.

Water projects undertaken by Maynilad Water Services and MPIC Water are estimated at P45 billion.

Including projects outside Metro Manila and within Asean, the group’s water infrastructure portfolio is seen rising to 5,508 million liters a day (MLD). Maynilad today has a pipeline of 1,400 MLD while provincial bulk water projects add 894 MLD.

For light railway transit, at least P70 billion in investment was set for the upgrading of stations, acquisition of light railway vehicles, reduction of travel time, replacement of aging tracks and improvement of electronic payment system. The group has also submitted an unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate the metro railway transit system.

In the meantime, about P13 billion has been earmarked to expand the group’s hospital portfolio and build primary care clinics and specialty treatment centers.

For 2018, the P100-billion capital expenditure program is broken down as follows: Maynilad (P12 billion), Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (P38 billion); Manila Electric Co. (P21 billion); Metro Pacific Hospitals (P6 billion), LRT-1 (P17 billion) and logistics and electronic payment business (P6 billion).