ACEN boosts war chest with P3.5 billion ING loan

MANILA, Philippines — ACEN Corp. of the Zobel family has secured additional financing of €50 million (about P3.5 billion) from Dutch banking giant ING Bank N.V. to bolster its renewable energy expansion.

In a regulatory filing, the company said its subsidiary, ACEN Investments Inc., signed a term loan facility with the ING Bank Manila branch, with the bank’s Singapore branch acting as agent.

The loan will finance and refinance ACEN’s existing and future renewable power projects, as well as other general corporate requirements.

In May last year, ACEN also sealed a €50-million credit facility with ING Bank to accelerate its international expansion.

Globally, the listed energy firm has 7.5 gigawatts of attributable renewables capacity spanning operational, under-construction and committed projects.

ACEN has programmed more than P80 billion for capital spending this year, with the bulk earmarked for the domestic power portfolio.

From January to June, the company’s attributable net income surged by more than fivefold to P3.9 billion from P763 million a year earlier.

Revenues climbed by 47 percent to P23.13 billion from P15.72 billion, driven by continued expansion of the retail electricity supply business and contributions from newly operational assets.

“Amid a continually uncertain environment, our priorities remain clear: protecting our balance sheet, growing our contracted energy sales and expanding our energy storage asset base,” ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia said.

ACEN ended the first half with total assets up by nine percent year-on-year to P395 billion. As funding continued to be deployed to projects under construction, its statutory debt widened to P168.4 billion.