By Alena Mae S. Flores | Posted on Aug. 27, 2013 at 12:03am
NATIONAL Grid Corporation of the Philippines has remitted P57.8 billion (approximately $1.3 billion) to Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. as prepayment of concession fees to improve the state company’s cash position.
PSALM president Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said the amount would enable the agency, which manages the assets and liabilities of National Power Corp., “to prepay a significant portion of [PSALM’s] foreign current debt.”
“Prepayment will improve PSALM’s cash position… Moreover, it is projected that PSALM won’t have to borrow for this year until 2015,” Ledesma said.
PSALM had planned to borrow around P20 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013 to ease its financial burden.
Ledesma said he was also hoping National Grid would prepay more to further help the government in its finances.
“There may be a succeeding prepayment, it is up to NGCP if it wants to exercise the right and option to prepay again,” he said. National Grid made the payment two weeks ago.
Joseph Ferdinand Dechavez, National Grid senior adviser to the president, confirmed the prepayment, saying the company borrowed the money from several banks.
National Grid officials earlier said the prepayment of concession fees could amount to $1 billion to $2 billion.
National Grid president Henry Sy Jr. said the company would help ease the government’s financial burden, especially PSALM, by prepaying or advancing part of the concession fees owed to the agency within the year.
The outstanding balance of the concession fee is estimated at around $2.6 billion, payable within 25 years.
“We borrow money separately because it cannot affect the operations of NGCP. We’ll just have to accommodate [the interest from the loan] because we just want to help the government,” Dechavez said.
“If we want to help the government, it should be [a] sizeable [amount], $1 billion to $2 billion should be the range,” he said.
PSALM’s total debt and lease obligation to independent power producers as of September 2012 reached P640 billion ($15.28 billion), comprising P328 billion ($7.85 billion) in debt and P311 billion ($7.43 billion) in lease obligations. source
No comments:
Post a Comment