First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPHC), the investment arm of the Lopez Group, has obtained P2-billion loan from BDO Unibank to beef up its capital expenditure budget for the coming year.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, FPHC Vice President and Assistant Corporate Secretary Esmeraldo C. Amistad said the company has executed a Loan Agreement for up to an aggregate principal amount of P2 billion with BDO.
“The proceeds will be used to finance equity investments and capital expenditures, refinance existing debt, and fund general corporate and other working capital requirements,” said Amistad.
For 2021, FPHC more than tripled its capital expenditures budget to P50 billion from the P15 billion actually spent in 2020.
FPHC President Francis Giles Puno said the bulk of the capex will be spent by power subsidiary First Gen Corporation.
About P15 billion would be allotted for FPHC’s real estate units with Rockwell Land Corporation getting a P14 billion budget this year while First Philippine Industrial Park will be spending P1 billion. A total of P9 billion is being allocated for FPHC’s other businesses.
Despite the setbacks due to the pandemic, Puno said “we witnessed a positive upturn in the last quarter of 2020. Economic activity and the overall operations of the group eventually ramped up when the government relaxed its guidelines and policies on quarantine restrictions.”
“As such, during the last quarter of 2020, the operating results of some of our companies were at par or even better than their results from pre-COVID periods,” he noted.
The projects of First Balfour and Thermaprime, which were halted during last year’s lockdown period, have been greenlit and are now ramping up. First Philec’s manufacturing line is also back to full plant capacity.
“One key growth area of focus through First Gen is in developing its liquefied natural gas or LNG terminal. The plan requires modifying First Gen’s existing jetty facilities in Batangas to enable LNG to be shipped to the country from anywhere in the world and regasify the LNG molecules via a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU),” said Puno.
He added that, “Our planned interim offshore terminal remains on track for completion in the third quarter of 2022.”