FGEN unit closes P15-B Casecnan loan

Lopez-led Fresh River Lakes Corp. (FRLC) has secured a P15-billion loan from three banks primarily to repay its parent, First Gen Corp. (FGEN), for the expenses incurred in the buyout and operations of the 165-megawatt Casecnan hydroelectric power plant in Nueva Ecija.

In an interview with reporters on Monday, FGEN president and chief operating officer Francis Giles B. Puno said the borrowings will help finance the acquisition of Casecnan. 

“If you recall, we need to cover the operation of Casecnan, and the way we funded that is from First Gen. Now, what we did is the FRLC that owns Casecnan became the borrowing entity. So we borrowed P15 billion,” Puno said. 

For refinancing

“That’s there to finance the original acquisition, so we can pay back the parent,” he added. 

In a stock exchange report on Monday, FGEN said the loan agreements with BDO Unibank Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. were signed last week, 18 July. 

FRLC won the government’s bid for the Casecnan facility for $227 billion. Developed in the 1990s, the Casecnan Plant is a “run-of-river” type of power plant with a limited impounding area, located at Sitio Pauan, Brgy. Villarica, Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija. It was covered by a build-operate-transfer agreement, which ended on 11 December 2021.