Tollways merger seen wrapping up this month

The planned merger of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) with the tollways unit of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is expected to be completed this month, according to MPTC president and CEO Rogelio Singson.

Singson on Wednesday said that announcements about the combination should be expected “soon,” adding that this will happen within the month of October.

“The merger is at the MPTC level, holding company. And the same is true with San Miguel,” Singson told reporters on the sidelines of the general membership meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines held at Shangri-La at the Fort in Taguig City.

Still, he noted that the transaction will still need the approval of the Philippine Competition Commission in order to be finalized.

Asked how this move would affect MPTC’s planned initial public offering at the local bourse, Singson said: “Well, that will have to wait, whether we will list separately or we will wait for the merger and be listed together.”

MPTC’s subsidiary, Metro Pacific Tollways (MPT) South Management Corp. is expecting traffic volume in its expressways to grow by 30 percent in 2025, following the completion of three major projects in their pipeline.

Last month, MPT South vice president Elnora Rumawak said they have projections that the average daily vehicle volume across all of their tollways will reach over 340,000 in 2025 from nearly 260,000 this year.

These include the operational portions of the Manila-Cavite Expressway (Cavitex) C5 Link Expressway and the Cavite-Laguna Expressway (Calax).

Meanwhile, the tollways unit of SMC, SMC SLEx Inc. saw average daily traffic at SLEx grow by 2 percent from 357,548 from 351,024 last year.