Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., or MPTC, the tollways arm of Metro Pacific Investment Corp. or MPIC, is putting its planned public listing this year on the back burner to focus on its historic joint venture with San Miguel Corp. or SMC.

MPTC president and CEO Rogelio Singson told reporters in a Thursday interview that the company has decided to pursue an initial public offering, or IPO, by 2025 instead amid an ongoing priority reassessment.

"As far as MPTC is concerned, we were ready to do an IPO after the delisting of MPIC but because of this merger, it might be delayed because we have to find out whether we should be merging first or conduct the IPO," Singson said.

IPO in 2025

"(The IPO) would be in 2025 because we need to assess, engage a third party assessor, financial advisor so it would be tedious," he added.

It was no less than MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan who recently announced that the infrastructure conglomerate will publicly list its tollways and water businesses following its delisting from the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Earlier this month, however, Pangilinan also disclosed plans to form a joint venture company with SMC of businessman Ramon Ang.

SMC holds the concession for the South Luzon Expressway, Skyway, NAIA Expressway Star Tollway, Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway and the Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway.

On the other hand, MPTC is the concessionaire of CALAX as well as the Manila-Cavite Expressway, C5 Link Segment, the North Luzon Expressway, the Subic-Clark Tarlac Expressway, the NLEX Connector Road, and the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway in Cebu.

Agreement signing

In August, the two tollway giants signed an agreement to jointly construct the Cavite-Batangas Expressway and the Nasugbu-Bauan Expressway. The combined cost of the two projects is P72 billion.

MPIC is the Philippine arm of Hong Kong-based investment holding firm First Pacific Company Ltd.