July 14 -- Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC) considers reaching their
projected income growth for 2012 very achievable since they are doing well,
said Joey Lim, president and chief executive officer of MPIC, in an exclusive
interview.
"MPIC has been doing well in
the second half and reaching our projected revenue for this year is very
achievable," he said.
The infrastructure holding firm
expanded its 2012 first-quarter net income by 91 percent to P1.57 billion,
driven by the double-digit revenue posted in its power and water distribution
businesses.
In a statement, the rise in the
core net income of MPIC was driven by the higher profits of Maynilad Water
Services Inc. and Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), because of higher billed
volume and higher tariffs as well as a strong performance across the hospital
group.
Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.
(MPTC), meanwhile, managed to deliver flat earnings despite the expiry of its
income tax holiday at the end of 2010.
Lim presented in the forum
University of Sto. Tomas CEO Series a portfolio of MPIC's infrastructure assets
that showed its key metrics during the previous year, which explained its
combined revenues for its water, hospitals, toll roads, and power businesses.
For its water business, Maynilad
earned P13.8 billion in revenue, while Makati Medical Center generated P8.5
billion. As for the toll roads, MPTC brought in P6.5 billion in revenue, and
Meralco earned P256.8 billion.
Lim also told The Manila Times
that MPIC has prospects for some acquisitions in the future, and that "we
are probably be doing more hospitals and we are trying to look into expanding
the water franchise."
Meanwhile, the current market
capital of MPIC is P103 billion and these are divided as follows: 55 percent
for its power business; 19 percent for its water business; 20 percent for
tollroads; and 6 percent for hospitals.
MPIC is also sees Meralco as
having a growing customer base--3.7-percent growth from 2010 to 2011, to 5.03
million customers comprised of residential (91.1 percent) commercial (8.6
percent) and industrial (0.3 percent).
For Maynilad, MPIC envisions it
to be the exclusive water concession for the West zone of Metro Manila to the
year 2037, while it sees MPTC to be operating the main road arteries to
Northern Luzon, equivalent to 65 percent of the total lane kilometers of toll
roads in the Philippines.
MPIC also sees itself to be the
largest hospital network in the country. MPIC operates hospitals such as the
Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital in Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang, and
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitals in Sta. Mesa, Manila, among others.
Recently, Maynilad won in the
Project Innovation Awards- Asia Pacific of the International Water Association
(IWA) for its Water Service Transformation program. The Project Innovation
Awards is a prestigious international competition, which recognizes and
celebrates innovation and excellence in water engineering projects around the
world.
Maynilad received the Honour
Award under the Operations/Management Category because of its quick and
dramatic company turnaround.
Opportunities from crisis
Lim's presentation titled
"Creating Opportunities from Crisis," was discussed during the UST
CEO Series, a forum facilitated by the UST Graduate School Professor Tommy Tiu.
The presentation also discussed how Metro Pacific Corp. (MPC), the predecessor
of MPIC, dealt with the Asian financial crisis during 1990s.
"Some of the impacts of the
Asian financial crisis to Metro Pacific are--we have experienced decline in
property sales, consortium members were also adversely affected and demanded
land titles in exchange for shares of stock, we experienced difficulties in
servicing debt maturities and interest payments arose, among others," said
Lim.
MPC, however, came out with a
response to these impacts and slowly put the embattled company in the recovery
stage.
"We had self-imposed
liquidation and rehabilitation process and northern district of Fort Bonifacio
was used to secure creditors," said Lim.
Also, the southern district of
Fort Bonifacio was made available for sale, which was purchased by the joint
venture of the Ayalas and Campos.
During its transition to MPIC,
MPC came out with a strategy: decrease issued and outstanding shares, and
eliminate built-up retained earnings deficit from years of losses.
According to Lim, the vision of
MPIC is, "establishment of a new company, robustly capitalized and whose
business scope with be focused on prime segments of the Philippine economy with
significant scale, growth potential and an opportunity to create real,
long-term value for shareholders."
Lim also explained in his
presentation the key factors to the successful transition of MPC to MPIC and
one of them was the full support-- financial and intellectual capital--they
received from their parent company First Pacific.
"There was also new team who
handled the transition which imposed no emotional attachment to assets. There
was also fair treatment of all creditors and we gave shareholders the
opportunity to transfer their shareholding to the new company," he said.
Lim added that MPIC, ensuring
that history doesn't repeat itself, now funds projects more conservatively, by
limiting their exposures to foreign currency risks, have non-cyclical
businesses, and inflation-protected returns.
Madelaine Miraflor
The Manila Times
Business & Investment Opportunities
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