MANILA, Philippines - The country’s leading total waste management solutions provider has completed the purchase of Minerales Industrias Corp. (MIC), giving the listed firm P500 million in fresh funds to pursue its conversion into a holding company that will convert solid waste into alternative fuel for manufacturing firms and waste-to-energy projects.
The IPM Group of Companies, a major player in the construction industry and owner/operator of the Quezon City Engineered Sanitary Landfill, subscribed to P500 million worth of shares of MIC, taken out of the increase in the capital stock of the latter.
The new management of MIC, headed by businesswoman Isabelita Paredes Mercado, is investing P450 million out of the P500 million in new capital to acquire 75 percent of Basic Environmental Systems and Technologies (BEST), a major waste management company for cleaner and greener environment.
The acquisition of BEST will allow MIC to convert its primary business from mining metals to mining tons of municipal solid waste and recycling them into renewable source of energy such as refuse derived fuel among others.
In the next few years, MIC intends to focus on growing BEST through the expansion of its municipal solid waste contracting business and establishment of additional facilities to process solid waste into alternative fuel for the cement and power generation industries.
According to the new management, MIC’s investment in BEST is expected to improve shareholder value as the company has ongoing profitable operation and a leader in the Philippine waste management industry.
The IPM Group began in the early 1980s initially as a construction firm and has since expanded into waste management, real estate development and information technology.
It also owns a world-class engineered sanitary landfill facility in Morong, Rizal, which serves the waste disposal requirements of the province and select private corporations. The Morong facility has since expanded to include a materials recovery and composting facility which pushed BEST closer to its goal of becoming an integrated waste management solution provider to the local government units’ perennial garbage problem from collection to disposal to recycling.
BEST was tapped by the national government to help in the massive cleanup of Metro Manila during the aftermath of the devastation left by typhoon Ondoy in 2009.
To maximize the efficient use of its massive equipment resources, IPM established IPM Realty & Development Corp., which has undertaken successful projects Northfields Executive Village in Malolos, Bulacan (120 hectares), Northfields Providence, and Northfields Rosewoods and Residential Parque (40 hectares), Tagaytay Tropical Greens (80 has.), Woodhills Residences in Tagaytay, Lee Gardens Towers in Shaw Mandaluyong City and economic and affordable housing also in Bulacan and Rizal.
IPM Construction, an AAA contractor, was also involved in various phases of development projects with the country’s leading developers which include, Robinsons Land, SM Prime Holdings, Megaworld, Empire East, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Rockwell Land. Federaland, Ayalaland, JG Summit, Ortigas and Co, Century Properties and Vistaland.