Cavite fine-tunes requirements for Sangley

MANILA, Philippines — The provincial government of Cavite has fine-tuned a legal qualification requirement to address national security concerns in its search for a new partner for the Sangley Point International Airport (SPIA) project, which to date has received interest from two groups.

Jesse Grepo, legal officer of  Cavite’s public-private partnership selection committee, told The STAR that two companies have so far bought the bid documents for the massive airport project, which the Cavite government targets to award by June.

Grepo, however, declined to disclose the name of the two entities.

In response to national security issues that have been raised for the project, the local government of Cavite now requires that its joint venture partner should be Philippine majority-owned and controlled, whether it be a single entity or a consortium.

If a consortium, the Philippine corporation should at least own and control 51 percent of the equity or voting interest.

The requirement was not applied to the airport project’s previous bidding, wherein the consortium of Lucio Tan’s MacroAsia Corp. and China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (CCCC) won.   CCCC had a 60 percent stake in the consortium, while MacroAsia held the minority 40 percent.

The airport deal awarded to the MacroAsia-CCCC consortium was terminated in January due to the various deficiencies of the submission of requirements to conclude the joint venture agreement, prompting the provincial government of Cavite to start anew with its search for a partner.

In terms of the financial qualification requirement, the interested company or consortium should have a net worth of at least $1.6 billion or about P80 billion.

For the technical qualification requirement, the firm or consortium should have successfully developed and built at least one international airport development project with a minimum handling capacity of 12.5 million passengers per annum, and at least one land reclamation development project, both in the last 20 years.

The technical qualification requirement can be met either by the company itself, the members constituting the consortium, any of their affiliates or their nominated contractors.

Prospective bidders are given one month, from March 1 to March 30, to purchase the bid documents. Deadline for the submission of joint venture proposals is on May 4.

Depending on the number of proposals to be received,   Cavite   targets to issue the notice of selection and award by June 1 and sign the joint venture and development agreement a month after or by July 1.

The winning join venture partner will be responsible for co-developing the airport project together with the province of Cavite, as well as provide the necessary equity investment, debt financing and credit enhancements.