Zobel-led Ayala Corporatiion, the country’s oldest conglomerate, has secured a senior long-term loan facility amounting to $200 million from Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (Metrobank).
The loan facility will support Ayala's strategic financing initiatives for its ongoing commitments and investments in emerging portfolios, namely, technology and payments, health, logistics and mobility.
“We have always been a proud partner of Ayala Corp. because we share their mission of enabling individuals and businesses in the country,” said Metrobank Mary Institutional Banking Sector Head Mylene Caparas.
She noted that, “This deal is a testament of our decades-long support to the Ayala Group’s growth aspirations of building businesses that transform industries, challenge the status quo, and bring innovations that contribute to the Philippines’ social and economic development goals, all while being a standard bearer for good corporate governance.”
Metrobank has been a long-standing financial partner of Ayala and its business units providing credit facilities for real-estate developments, renewable energy projects, and data centers.
"This loan agreement with Metrobank will support our efforts to sharpen our portfolio and allocate capital to clear business winners" said Ayala Chief Finance Officer Albert de Larrazabal.
He added that, “We are glad to partner with Metrobank, an institution that has been working with us for over 30 years, supporting our purpose of building businesses that enable people to thrive.”
The conglomerate is raising its capital expenditure budget by 14 percent to P284 billion this year from P249 billion in 2023 as it is confident of surpassing last year’s record financial performance.
Ayala President and CEO Cezar P. Consing said “2023 was a reasonably good year for us in aggregate. That's our new high watermark in terms of net income. It exceeded pre-COVID. It was up on the year before.
“This year, that momentum, at least what we're seeing right now, is pretty good. And we're seeing it more evenly distributed across our many businesses… This year, I think you're going to see more of our businesses begin to show real positive events.”
Larrazabal said the bulk of this year’s capex will be spent for the expansion of Ayala Land Inc. and ACEN Corporation.
ALI raised its capex budget by 14 percent to P100 billion this year while ACEN has increased its allotment by about 40 percent to P72 billion.
On the other hand, other subsidiaries are reducing their capex, particularly Globe Telecom which has budgeted P55 billion, a five-year low as it has already scaled up its facilities in recent years.
For the parent company, including funding for the group’s portfolio investments, Ayala has allotted capital expenditures of P13 billion for 2023.