Conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. said Tuesday it will spend P58.4 billion in 2016 primarily to build more power plants in the country.
This year’s capital expenditure is slightly lower than the company’s P60-billion budget in 2015.
AEV said in a disclosure to the stock exchange 75 percent or P52 billion of this year’s budget was earmarked to finance power expansion projects in line with the goal to increase total power generation capacity to 4,000 megawatts by 2020.
Aside from power projects, AEV is also engaged in banking and financial services, food, property development and infrastructure.
“Each of our businesses has the potential for higher financial return and growth, as well as sufficient scale and capability to deliver long-term value for all our stakeholders,” said AEV president and chief executive Erramon Aboitiz.
AEV said unit Aboitiz Power Corp. planned to launch its first solar power project in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental in the first quarter of 2016.
Therma South Inc., a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power, inaugurated the 300-MW baseload plant in Davao City, providing the much-needed capacity to the Mindanao grid. Unit 1 started operations in September last year while Unit 2 started full commercial operations Tuesday.
Other projects being built by Aboitiz Power are the 68-MW Manolo Fortich hydropower plant in Bukidnon, 8.5-MW hydropower plant in Isabela, 300-MW Therma Visayas baseload plant in Cebu and 400-MW Pagbilao III expansion in Quezon province.
Aboitiz Power also identified 200 MW of potential run-of-river power projects that it would build across the archipelago over the next five years.
Meanwhile, AEV’s banking and financial services companies will have a combined capital expenditure of P968 million. The budget includes P871 million for Union Bank’s initiatives to push growth in customer businesses supported by loan expansion and P97 million for remittance business unit PetNet for its branch network expansion.
AEV’s food unit Pilmico is spending P2.3 billion this year to support Asean expansion while property unit AboitizLand Inc. is spending P2.7 billion to acquire more industrial and residential land, as it continues to expand outside Cebu to other key cities.