NLEX Corp. said Friday it signed a term loan facility of P7 billion with Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company to partially finance capital expenditures and refinance debt.
The operator of North Luzon Expressway and Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway said the P7-billion fixed-rate term loan facility would have a tenor of 10 years.
“The proceeds of the term loan facility will be used by NLEX Corp. to finance its capital expenditure projects and refinance the Company’s existing indebtedness,” the company said.
NLEX signed a corporate notes facility agreement with various financial institutions for unsecured notes amounting to P20 billion in November 2020 and a P5-billion term loan facility with BDO Unibank Inc. in September 2019.
NLEX reported a net income of P5.7 billion in the first nine months, up 42 percent from last year, driven by traffic recovery, higher toll, and better cost-management strategy.
Revenues climbed 31 percent in the nine-month period to P13.1 billion on the gradual re-opening of the economy since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and implementation of toll adjustments.
The average daily traffic at NLEX reached 280,552 daily vehicle entries as of September, higher than 2021 figures by 16 percent. The daily traffic in SCTEX also improved 34 percent to 70,535 daily vehicle entries.
NLEX spans about 105 kilometers or 598 lane-kms and catered to an average of 201,790 vehicles a day in 2020. The expressway is the main infrastructure backbone that connects Metro Manila to Central and Northern Luzon.
The company is building the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road—an elevated four-lane toll expressway structure with a length of 8 kilometers passing through and above the right of way of the PNR from NLEX Segment 10 at C-3 Road Caloocan City and seamlessly connecting to SLEX through Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 Project in Manila.
The company said the Caloocan to Espana section of the NLEX Connector was more than 90 percent complete and could open by December 2022.
The Caloocan to Sta. Mesa stretch will be fully operational by the early second quarter of 2023, it said.