ACEN sets P55.5-B capex for project expansions; income up 22% to P5.2-B
By Myrna M. Velasco – March 9, 2022, 2:35 PM
from Manila Bulletin
Having logged consolidated net income growth hitting P5.3 billion last year, Ayala-led energy firm ACEN Corporation will also be on its massive-scale capital spending to the tune of P55.5 billion this 2022 for its expansion projects in the Philippines as well as offshore markets.
The firm’s profitability last year rose 22 percent from a leaner P4.3 billion in 2020 while its capital expenditures (capex) likewise escalated by 68 percent from P33.1 billion last year.
“The company intends to use this for aggressive development of new capacity in the Philippines to address the country’s power supply challenges, as well as the construction of ACEN’s 521-megawatt New England solar farm in Australia and 420-MW Masaya solar farm in India,” the Ayala firm stated.
Cora G. Dizon, chief finance officer and treasurer of ACEN, narrated that “throughout the year, the company navigated the equity and debt capital markets to raise close to US$1 billion in fresh capital in 2021 to fund our renewable energy expansion.”
She specified that bulk of the proceeds fetched had been through ACEN Finance Limited’s recent US$400-million fixed for-life perpetual green bond offering.
“We remain a leading player in sustainable financing, which supports us as one of the fastest growing RE companies in Southeast Asia,” Dizon stressed.
Further, the company indicated that its revenues had climbed 27-percent to P26.1 billion from the previous year’s P20.5 billion – mainly owing to jump on energy sales due to increased generation output.
The improvement in the Ayala energy firm’s bottom line, according to ACEN President and CEO Eric T. Francia, is attributed to the economic recovery of the Asian economies hammered by the coronavirus pandemic – and that includes its home-market in the Philippines.
“As the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region recover from the pandemic’s peak, the energy sector continues to experience strong demand for power. ACEN’s robust 2021 financial and operating results reflect our ability to benefit from this,” Francia highlighted.
He added the company’s focus on “aggressively expanding the company’s renewable energy portfolio will allow us to meet the power challenges in both our home country and in regional markets in an environmentally sound and socially responsible way.”
It is worth noting that the investment capital infusion of ACEN is not just done robustly in the Philippines, but also in its other more markets in Vietnam, India and Australia.
In terms of attributable output, the Ayala company emphasized that this expanded by 21-percent to 4,633 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year from 3,818 GWh in 2020 – and that has been traced mainly to the new projects that recently reached commercial operations phase.
The firm expounded that sales growth “was partly driven by a noteworthy 23-percent rise in generation from renewable energy (RE) sources,” noting that “output grew across technologies and geographies, following the resurgence of demand — with a 24-percent growth in international output, and a 20-percent increase from the Philippine assets.”
