CREC staying out of debt market this year

MANILA, Philippines — Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) of tycoon Edgar Saavedra is not inclined to tap the debt market this year for its funding requirements due to high interest rates.

CREC President Oliver Tan told reporters last week that plans to issue green bonds would depend on the interest rate conditions in the country, and that they would most likely tap the debt market next year.

“We would want to wait for a rate cut and for rates to go down,“ Tan said on Friday, following the listing ceremony of CREC.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has raised hopes of an earlier rate cut this year, but analysts say that the central bank may need to keep rates higher for longer to support the weakening peso.

Tan said they normally fund their solar projects with both equity and debt.

“On the debt side, these are mostly funded by local banks … We believe that local banks have enough liquidity to fund the renewable energy pipeline projects in the Philippines,” he said.

IPO raised P5.3B

CREC, the second company to go public this year, raised P5.3 billion from its initial public offering (IPO), of which $12.5 million, or about P732 million, came from the Mobilist Programme, a UK government-supported fund.

In March, Sy-led conglomerate SM Investments Corp. bought 29 percent of CREC’s shares in its real estate investment trust arm for P5 billion, adding capital for the Megawide company’s expansion plans.

CREC, which is also the third company under the Megawide Group to list on the local bourse, wants to develop up to 5,000 megawatts (MW) of solar projects in the next five years to realize its ambition of becoming one of the country’s largest power producers.

According to Tan, they will first focus on developing their solar portfolio before eventually growing their onshore wind and battery energy storage facilities.

Currently, CREC has 285.1 MW of available capacity in its portfolio of solar, hydro, and wind projects.

It is presently the second-largest solar power developer in the Philippines after the Ayala group’s ACEN Corp., which has at least 400 MW of available solar capacity.