Published in the October 24, 2005 issue of BusinessWorld
In a talk with reporters, Phinma President Ramon R. Del Rosario, Jr. said the group is "seriously looking" at bidding for the plant, which will be the first geothermal asset Napocor will bid out.
Bidding has been slated for Dec. 8.
"We’re seriously looking at Tiwi-Makban... We like geothermal. It’s indigenous, it’s somewhat replenishable," Mr. Del Rosario said.
He said it will be the whole Phinma group that will bid for the asset, and the company is working on getting consortium partners for the undertaking. "We will have to get partners for this, it’s so big," he said.
He declined to name the parties that the company is in talks with.
He said the group may use the P1 billion it set aside from retained earnings for the acquisition.
"It’s omnibus. It’s available for whatever the group decides to get into," he said.
Mr. Del Rosario said that should Phinma win the bid for the asset, running the plant will become its main business.
He said winning the bid will also allow Phinma to raise equity.
"We want to continue investing and investing somewhat aggressively so when the opportunity comes we will go into capital raising but we think it’s unrealistic to do it until we are able to show a good story. Only if we are able to acquire a good power generating asset then that would probably be a good time to do it especially if we have a good consortium with us and the story is something that the market will find exciting," he said.
Phinma, through its subsidiary Trans-Asia Power Corp., operates two power plants that produce 53.4 megawatts of power. The company is looking to expand its operations in the power sector through the purchase of the Napocor assets.
Mr. Del Rosario said the company is still not keen on expanding through the construction of new power plants. "We have no plans [to do this], especially when there are these opportunities to acquire. The time you spend building a plant is three years, even more. That’s a period when we have no cash flows, that’s very, very costly. We don’t have the resources to do something like that," he said
Corporate News
Phinma keen to bid for Tiwi-Makban plant
The Phinma Group wants to acquire some of the geothermal assets of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) and is set to bid for the 700-megawatt Tiwi-Makban geothermal power plant.In a talk with reporters, Phinma President Ramon R. Del Rosario, Jr. said the group is "seriously looking" at bidding for the plant, which will be the first geothermal asset Napocor will bid out.
Bidding has been slated for Dec. 8.
"We’re seriously looking at Tiwi-Makban... We like geothermal. It’s indigenous, it’s somewhat replenishable," Mr. Del Rosario said.
He said it will be the whole Phinma group that will bid for the asset, and the company is working on getting consortium partners for the undertaking. "We will have to get partners for this, it’s so big," he said.
He declined to name the parties that the company is in talks with.
He said the group may use the P1 billion it set aside from retained earnings for the acquisition.
"It’s omnibus. It’s available for whatever the group decides to get into," he said.
Mr. Del Rosario said that should Phinma win the bid for the asset, running the plant will become its main business.
He said winning the bid will also allow Phinma to raise equity.
"We want to continue investing and investing somewhat aggressively so when the opportunity comes we will go into capital raising but we think it’s unrealistic to do it until we are able to show a good story. Only if we are able to acquire a good power generating asset then that would probably be a good time to do it especially if we have a good consortium with us and the story is something that the market will find exciting," he said.
Phinma, through its subsidiary Trans-Asia Power Corp., operates two power plants that produce 53.4 megawatts of power. The company is looking to expand its operations in the power sector through the purchase of the Napocor assets.
Mr. Del Rosario said the company is still not keen on expanding through the construction of new power plants. "We have no plans [to do this], especially when there are these opportunities to acquire. The time you spend building a plant is three years, even more. That’s a period when we have no cash flows, that’s very, very costly. We don’t have the resources to do something like that," he said
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