Filinvest Group plans $300M bond issue

MANILA, Philippines - An overseas unit of Filinvest Development Corp. (FDC), the listed investment holding company of the Gotianun family, will facilitate the issuance of as much as $300 million worth of bonds.

The holding firm will also guarantee the payment of interest rates on the bonds, sweetening the planned transaction.

In a disclosure, FDC said its board of directors approved the plan to issue “bonds or notes in the offshore market through an offshore special purpose vehicle.”

The board said FDC will also guarantee bonds or notes under the terms and conditions beneficial to the company.

In January, FDC announced the company’s plan “to issue and float bonds in the offshore market with an aggregate principal amount between $200 million to $300 million.”

Fresh funds from the bond sale will be used for capital spending this year.

Target date for the bond sale is within the second quarter, subject to the approval of concerned government agencies.

The exact amount and other details like the yield and maturity will be determined by management, FDC said.

The Gotianun-led Filinvest Group is one of the country’s leading conglomerates, with interests in real estate development (Filinvest Land Inc.), hotel (Crimson Resort and Spa at Seascapes Resort Town in Cebu), financial and banking services (East West Banking Corp.) and sugar manufacturing (Pacific Sugar Holdings).

Its power generation and distribution unit FDC Utilities Inc. is pursuing clean coal projects mostly in Mindanao, with a total of 395 megawatts of generating capacity expected to be onstream by 2017.

FDC is also joining the bidding for the P17.5-billion public-private partnership project to expand and operate the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

In the nine months to September last year, FDC recorded a consolidated net income of P3.388 billion, up eight percent from P3.13 billion a year ago as consolidated revenues and other income surged 26 percent to P16.257 billion.