By Regina Coeli T. Aquino / Special to the BusinessMirror
MEGAWIDE Construction Corp., which bagged the construction project of the new Mactan-Cebu International Airport, has appropriated P2 billion for this year’s capital expenditure (capex) to bankroll its airport venture.
The amount is thrice the listed company’s allotted spending last year, which was pegged at P600 million to P700 million, Megawide CFO Oliver Tan said. It will be mainly used to fund its subsidiary GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp., its joint venture with Indian airport operator GMR Infrastructure Ltd. that won the P17.52-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport Passenger Terminal Building project.
Tan said the company expects the airport business to augment this year’s bottomline, after it fell by 36 percent to P887.16 million last year, according to the annual financial report it filed with the Philippine Stock Exchange.
“We’re looking at full-year net income to be somewhere between P1.3 billion and P1.5 billion, of which the airport operation would contribute somewhere at 25 percent of the consolidated [income],” he said on the sidelines of Megawide’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Tuesday at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza.
Megawide also saw a 10-percent decline in revenue to P10.22 billion last year. Tan said the project is also expected to help the company meet this year’s target.
“We’re looking at full-year topline revenue at 13 billion—that’s on a consolidated basis—10 percent of which would be coming from airport operation, and 90 percent will still come from traditional construction,” he added.
The terminal project is among the 10 solicited endeavors under public-private partnership (PPP) initiative, the Aquino administration’s flagship project. The consortium, together with the President, broke ground on Monday the country’s first airport under PPP project.
The listed builder won four other PPP projects. These are the P16.43-billion first phase of the PPP for School Infrastructure Project (PSIP); PSIP’s P3.86-billion second phase; P8.69-billion modernization of the the Philippine Orthopedic Center; and the P2.5-billion Southwest Terminal of the Integrated Transport System.
Tan said Megawide has enough funds for this year’s projects and does not need to raise more.
“Currently, we have earmarked or ready to be deployed for various identified PPP projects,” he said. “Any potential fund-raising will highly depend on the number of PPP projects that we will be winning.”
Megawide Corporate Information Officer Manuel Louie Ferrer said the company plans to expand in the airport industry by being a prospective bidder for the P108.19-billion double-bundled airport projects, which involve the development and operation and maintenance of five regional aviation hubs.
He said it is also interested in diverse PPP projects. These include the P4-billion South Terminal of the Integrated Transport System project; the P50.18-billion Regional Prison Facilities; and the P18.72-billion The New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project.
“For as long as it’s construction, we will be interested in a project,” Ferrer said.