ACEN to tap China Bank, MUFG for P8-billion credit facilities

By Alena Mae S. Flores – May 18, 2023, 8:10 pm
from manilastandard.net

ACEN Corp., the power generation arm of Ayala Corp., plans to avail of credit facilities totaling about P8 billion to finance its renewable energy projects.

ACEN said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Thursday its board approved the execution and availment of credit facilities with China Banking Corp. for P5 billion.

The board also approved the execution and availment of omnibus credit lines with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group involving $50 million.

It also approved in principle the increase in transmission line investments to support ACEN’s Zambales solar projects.

ACEN chief finance officer Maria Corazon Dizon said the company may tap the debt market to raise P30 billion in 2023.

“In terms of new debt, we are projecting to borrow about P30 billion. We are also looking at equity offering by way of preferred shares and that is not part of the P30 billion expected borrowing during the year. That’s corporate finance,” Dizon said.

ACEN set 2023 capital expenditures at P50 billion to P70 billion for new and ongoing projects.

It has around 2,400 megawatts of renewable power generation capacity under construction, the majority of which will be operational in 2023.

The company builds 1,000 MW of new projects every year, but plans to ramp up its projects attain its 20,000-MW target by 2030.

“There’s a lot of work ahead of us but we’ve got that singular objective of getting to 20 GW by 2030  so that means growing our pipeline and increasing the rate of new projects under construction of what has been 1 GW to more than 1 GW,” ACEN president Eric Francia said.

ACEN ended 2022 with over 4,000 MW of net attributable capacity, with 98 percent coming from renewable technologies across the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India and Indonesia.