First Holdings prepays $20-M loans this year

First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC), the holding firm for the power and manufacturing businesses of the Lopez family, has prepaid around $20 million in loans so far this year and is considering tapping the debt market again next year to fund maturing loans due 2010.

FPHC president Elpidio Ibanez said the planned borrowing is subject to favorable market conditions, pointing out that the company currently has enough money to service its debts.

Ibanez said the company is paying $26 million floating rate notes due next year.

The company made amortization and interest payments for its $35 million term notes due in 2011. Its plan is to partially repay and refinance its outstanding debts worth around P1.5 billion.

FPHC, 43.15 percent owned by Benpres Holdings Corp., earlier said it was aiming to trim its debt by $100 million in the next two years, using proceeds from asset sales.  The company recently sold  its stake in Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC), the operator of the North Luzon Expressway, to Metro Pacific Investments Corp. It will receive P6.2 billion from the sale of the said asset.

Apart  from reducing debt, FPHC might use proceeds from the asset disposition to fund its  joint venture through First Philec Electric Corp. with SunPower Manufacturing Ltd.

The venture operates a wafer-slicing plant at the First Philippine Industrial Park in Batangas that services the growing solar energy industry.

First Philec is the holding company of the manufacturing businesses of First Holdings, while SPML is a subsidiary of solar technology provider SunPower Corporation (SunPower) of the United States.

The Batangas plant is the first large-scale silicon wafer-slicing facility in the Philippines and is envisioned to have 100 multiwire saws producing 240 million wafers annually to support approximately 720 megawatts of solar energy.

FPHC is also planning to use proceeds to fund strategic acquisitions programmed this year upto 2011 as well as other capital and operating requirements.