Published
October 10, 2018, 10:00 PM By
Myrna M. Velasco
State-run Power Sector
Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) registered swelling
foreign exchange (forex) losses of roughly P26 billion in the first six months
of this year due to the precipitous slide in the value of the Philippine peso
versus the greenback.
“With the depreciation of the Philippine peso
to the US dollar to P53.5220 from P49.923 (at the end of 2017), the impact to
PSALM is an additional obligation or a forex loss of about P25.69 billion for
the first half of 2018,” PSALM President Irene Joy B. Garcia has divulged.
Garcia emphasized that
such accounted for its foreign-denominated debts as well as outstanding lease
obligations under its contracts with independent power producers (IPPs) – part
of the assets and liabilities transferred to it by the National Power
Corporation.
If reckoned from just
January to June this year, the PSALM executive noted that the company’s total
financial obligations had been at P464.42 billion.
And with the Philippine
peso depreciating further to the level of P54.2320 versus the US dollar in
recent weeks, Garcia emphasized that such translated to an “equivalent
additional forex loss of P4.22 billion.”
That then pulled up the
company’s total obligations to P468.64 billion to-date, it had gone even higher
from the P466 billion estimate as of end-December 2017 – essentially eclipsing
the recent debt payments made by the company.
The PSALM president noted
that its financial obligations are dominated by US dollars – around 74 percent
of the total; and Japanese yen had 6.0-percent share in the pie. The balance of
the firm’s debts had been in the local currency.
PSALM has been
exploring various measures so it can shore up cash flow – strategies of which
include escalated privatization of remaining government-owned power assets and
going after past due accounts.
By end of last year,
the state-run firm’s magnitude of liabilities had been at US$5.27 billion for
long-term debts; and US$4.03 billion on IPP lease deals.
As part of its
liability management scheme, PSALM has been calculating steps on how it can
continually divest the remaining NPC properties – including real estate assets.
It has been the wish of
PSALM Board Chairman and Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III that the
liabilities of the power sector be wiped out completely at the of PSALM’s
corporate life in 2026, but at the rate of recent developments, this appears to
be an elusive goal.
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