Aboitiz-Ayala group eyes ‘bundled’ airports project
Mactan Cebu International Airport.
The Aboitiz Group is keen on bidding for other “bundled” regional airports the government may auction off under its public private partnership (PPP) program and it may keep its partnership with the Ayala group, a company official said.
Aboitiz Equity Ventures president and CEO Erramon Aboitiz said the airport business remained attractive if the government could structure deals that would provide the scale similar to the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport project.
Aboitiz and partner Ayala, as well as five other groups, were outbid during the opening of financial proposals last Dec. 12 for the Mactan-Cebu airport deal. The project, however, has yet to be awarded given a still-to-be-resolved row between the top two bidders.
Recently, the government has indicated that it was looking at bundling airport operations contracts for Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, Puerto Princesa (Palawan), Bohol and Laguindingan (Misamis Oriental) under the PPP scheme. This means bidders keen on breaking into the business could pursue fresh opportunities.
“We definitely had intentions of growing that business if we were successful in Mactan,” Aboitiz told reporters in a recent interview, adding that they would again participate “if there are interesting projects” and of a particular size.
He noted that there were no commitments to pursue future airport deals with Ayala but “it makes sense that we look at them together.”
Other conglomerates like JG Summit Holdings and Metro Pacific Investments as well as San Miguel Corp., which were also unsuccessful in the Mactan-Cebu bid, were keen on other deals that may be auctioned off, their respective officials said.
The PPP Center said it would hold a series of meetings with the private sector to help determine the optimal size of bundling. For example, airports in Davao, Bacolod and Iloilo handled about 5.5 million passengers in 2011, government statistics showed. Mactan Cebu International Airport, the Philippines’s second-busiest airport, handled about 6.7 million passengers last year.
Other bidders had noted that they would first need to see the issues surrounding Mactan-Cebu Airport resolved. The awarding of the project, originally scheduled on Jan. 6 this year, has been delayed as the Filinvest group, which placed the second-highest offer, raised various issues, including an alleged conflict of interest violation, against frontrunner Megawide-GMR.
Megawide-GMR offered a P14.4-billion premium bid against the roughly P14 billion offer of Filinvest-Changi. The main conflict-of-interest allegation, being contested by GMR-Megawide, involves a key official of Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, which is a partner of a rival consortium for the Cebu airport deal, but is also a director of two airports that GMR operates in India.
PPP Center executive director Cosette Canilao told reporters this week that the transportation department’s bids and awards committee would soon render a decision on the matter.
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