MPIC to sell 20% MPTC stake
Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) is selling up to 20 percent of its stake in its tollways business to reduce debt and raise funds after hitting the pause button on talks to merge with San Miguel Corp. (SMC).
Manuel Pangilinan, MPIC chair, president and CEO, confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that a third-party entity was interested in buying a portion of the conglomerate’s shares in Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) within the next two months.
Once the deal is closed, this will reduce MPIC’s ownership in MPTC to around 73 percent, as it also recently finalized an agreement with Mit-Pacific for the latter to acquire a 6.6-percent stake in MPTC, according to Pangilinan. This was first announced in September 2024.
“The main use [of the proceeds] will be the reduction of debts MPTC has,” Pangilinan said.
He was mum on the exact amount that MPIC plans to raise from the share sale, although he hinted that it would be worth “several billions.”
P50 billion
Earlier, Pangilinan, who is also chair and president of MPTC, said they wanted to raise up to P50 billion this year to settle part of the toll road operator’s debt.
MPIC’s financial report showed that it had P65 billion in debt as of end-2024, around half of which are MPTC’s obligations, said Chaye Cabal-Revilla, chief financial officer of the conglomerate.
This comes after MPTC deferred talks with SMC Tollways for their planned merger, as the Pangilinan-led firm needed to raise funds to cut debt.
Discussions about the merger started in 2023, when the two companies partnered to build an expressway in southern Tagalog.
MPIC in 2024 posted a 21-percent growth in its core earnings to an all-time high of P23.6 billion.
For its part, MPTC ended the year with a 28-percent jump in its bottom line to P6.5 billion on toll rate increases and domestic traffic growth. Its revenues likewise climbed by 16 percent to P31.6 billion.
MPTC’s projects include the Manila-Cavite Expressway and Cavite-Laguna Expressway.
It is likewise set to build an P880-billion elevated expressway in Indonesia this year to link east and south Jakarta.
