Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. relisting in stock market

August 08,2017

After voluntarily delisting from the stock exchange five years ago, Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., which has an investment spending program of P130.5 billion in the next five years, may reenter the stock market in two years’ time.

If there’s any unit under infrastructure holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) that will be brought public, it’s MPTC and not the hospital group. And this may happen in 2019, MPIC chief finance officer David Nicol said.

While the general environment for the initial public offering (IPO) of hospitals is positive in any market, Nicol said the group would like to keep the hospital group privately held “to allow more flexibility and set certain negotiating terms.” Now operating 2,900 beds in 13 hospitals, Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings is continuing to look at opportunities to grow its healthcare chain and unlock efficiencies. “They don’t want the distraction of managing public listing,” Nicol said.

“For us, it’s more a question on how we achieve our expansion ambitions particularly in the toll roads side, where we’re putting a lot of capital and how do we fund that? One of those options is the IPO, but I think the funding plans are reasonably set for next year, so 2019, it might be, but it’s driven by what are those funding plans we need,” Nicol added.

Among the new toll roads being built by MPTC is the P21.8-billion, 8-kilometer elevated NLEx-SLEx connector road that is due to start at the end of this year and is targeted for completion in 2021. It has also broken ground for the P19-billion, 44.6-km Cavite Laguna Expressway connecting Cavitex to Biñan, Laguna, which is expected to be delivered by 2020. The P27.9-billion, 8.25-km Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway, a road and bridge connecting Cebu City to Mactan Island via Cordova, is expected to be completed by 2020.

In order to fund its P130.5-billion investment pipeline, however, it is imperative for the group that overdue tariff increases—now ranging between 20 percent and 48 percent on different parts of the network, be implemented. Foregone revenues from delayed tariff adjustments have been estimated at P7 billion from NLEx and Cavitex. The group said it was in “constructive” dialogue with the Duterte administration on how to achieve this. —DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA

Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.