Metro Pacific Tollways listing pushed back to second half of 2025

Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) will likely push through with its listing by the second half of 2025 instead of this year as initially planned, the company’s highest ranking official said.

Sought for comment on the planned listing of his tollways business on the local stock exchange this year, MPTC chair Manuel Pangilinan said this is unlikely to happen within 2024, and would instead be at the second half of 2025 at the earliest.

“Hindi pa siguro. Palagay ko next year ‘yun (Maybe not yet. I think that would be next year). There’s no more time. We’re just left with 40 days or so before Christmas, so I doubt it. That’s too short,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

“Palagay ko (I think) second half (of 2025) kasi we still have to do certain things… At the earliest second half of next year,” he added, noting that Mitsui would still have to descend where they want to convert half their stake in Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) to the tollways business which could be done by this month.

MPIC in September entered a framework agreement to buy back 4.58 million common shares or 50% of the common shares held by Mit-Pacific — a joint venture between Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport & Urban Development — in the company.

MPIC also agreed to issue an exchangeable bond to Mit-Pacific, with a total subscription price of P11.9 billion. MPIC delisted from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in October 2023.

Pangilinan in September 2023 announced plans to list the tollways business, to be followed by Maynilad Water Services in 2026. In February he said he is optimistic to list MPTC this year, citing the structure of the business which caters mostly to tollways.

MPTC is a unit of MPIC, which currently operates the North Luzon Expressway, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, the Cavite-Laguna Expressway, the Manila-Cavite Expressway, the NLEX Connector, and the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway.

The company is in talks to merge with the tollways business of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), which operates the South Luzon Expressway, the Skyway Stage 3, the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR), the NAIA Expressway, and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX). —KBK, GMA Integrated News