Aboitiz eyes up to P20B from retail bond issuance

MANILA, Philippines - Cebu-based conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. hopes to raise as much as P20 billion from the issuance of fixed-rate retail bonds within the second half of the year to fund infrastructure investments for the fifth leg of its business.

AEV chief financial officer Stephen Paradies in an interview said the company plans to borrow about P15-to P20-billion from the bond market by the last six months of the year.

“AEV, we might do a retail bond debt depending on what we get. (As for the terms) We’d like to go longer, about seven to 12 years,” Paradies said.

Paradies said AEV is already “sounding off the banks” for the planned bond offering.

He said proceeds of the offering would be used for its Public-Private Partnership (PPP) endeavors.

“We raised retail bonds at the parent company last year. For this year, we’re okay for Aboitiz Power,” Paradies said.

AEV earlier said it intends to explore more growth opportunities in infrastructure investments after already establishing itself in power, banking, food and land development.

“The LRT 2, we’re teaming up with the Singapore group. If the airports are bundled together, we’d like to take a look at that also,” Paradies said.

AEV has earlier formed the consortium Trident Infrastructure and Development Corp., along with Ayala Land, SM Prime Holdings and Megaworld  Corp., to bid for the P123.8-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway and Dike project.

The conglomerate, through its joint venture with JV Angeles Construction Corp., has also been awarded the contract to develop a 300 million liter per day bulk water supply project to support Davao City’s growing needs, the country’s largest private bulk water supply project to date.