By Danessa Rivera (The
Philippine Star) | Updated February 15, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - San
Buenaventura Power Ltd. has been cited by Thomson Reuters for a landmark fund
raising that ended up as the country’s biggest project finance transaction in
peso terms.
Last Feb. 3, the company bagged the
“Asia-Pacific Power Deal of the Year” from Reuters’ Project Finance
International (PFI) for its P42.15-billion all-peso fund raising transaction
last year.
It was the biggest transaction of
such kind to date.
The company is a joint venture
between Manila Electric Co. Power Gen Corp. and Thailand’s Electricity
Generating Public Co. Ltd. It was among the 40 companies which made it to PFI’s
Roll of Honour.
It is currently building a
500-megawatt (gross) supercritical coal-fired power plant in Mauban in Quezon
province, the first in the country to use state-of-the art supercritical
technology.
Compared to subcritical power
plants, supercritical coal-fired power plants operate at higher pressures
leading to higher efficiencies and significant reductions in emissions over the
expected life of the plant.
In Oct. 8, 2015, San Buenaventura
Power signed a project financing agreement for the project. It made its first
drawdown in Dec. 1 that year.
The transaction has a tenor of 15
years, the longest maturity that Philippine banks can provide.
The project finance was put together
by a consortium of Philippine financial institutions, which usually requires
support from foreign banks or multilateral export credit agencies in other
similar deals.
The lenders are composed of BDO
Unibank Inc., China Banking Corp., Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co.,
Philippine National Bank, and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.
BDO Unibank-Trust and Investments
Group served as the loan facility agent while Metrobank-Trust Banking Group
acted as collateral trustee.
Meanwhile, BDO Capital &
Investment Corp. and First Metro Investment Corp. were appointed as joint
bookrunners and joint issue coordinators.
On the other hand, Chinabank, PNB
Capital and Investment Corp. and RCBC Capital Corp. acted as joint lead
arrangers for the transaction.
San Buenaventura Power expects the
plant to start providing baseload power supply by the first half of 2019.
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