ACEN to spend P70 billion this year

MANILA, Philippines — Ayala-owned ACEN Corp. has earmarked P70 billion to bankroll the capital expenditures of its domestic and international operations this year

ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia said about P40 billion of the amount would be used to finance its businesses in the Philippines.

“We ended last year with cash in our balance sheet of just under P40 billion, so that’s obviously going to go to fund a lot of these capex plus additional financing mostly from bilateral loans, whether it’s mostly at the project level, project finance from banks basically,” Francia said.

ACEN has a total capacity of 700 megawatts in the Philippines, as well as 400 and 500 megawatts in India and Australia, respectively.

Francia also disclosed that ACEN has allocated $15 billion to achieve 20 gigawatts of total capacity from the current five GW.

This means one GW is equivalent to $1 billion.

“We expect roughly 60 percent of the funding to come from debt, whether it’s by collateral, from banks or the debt capital markets,” Francia said.

He added that the 40 percent would come from equity sources, wherein “a good chunk” will come from reinvestments of cash flows from existing projects.

ACEN, through its subsidiary ACEN Renewables International (ACRI), recently secured a $150-million green term loan facility from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) Singapore branch to support its 20 GW renewable energy goal by 2030.

The five-year green term loan is the first partnership between ACEN and SMBC, allowing the energy firm to expand into several key international markets.