AS part of its capital-raising initiative to bankroll its plan to operate 30 vessels by 2020, Archipelago Philippine Ferries Corp. (APFC) has sealed another loan deal worth P1.726 billion with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) for the construction of five new ships set to be delivered by middle of next year.
“We are fortunate that Landbank is aligned with our vision to modernize the shipping industry, to connect the Philippines through ‘moving bridges,’ and to ensure safer, more comfortable and reliable means of sea transport,” FastCat CEO Christopher Pastrana said during the ceremonial signing of the loan agreement held at Diamond Hotel Philippines in Manila last week.
Believing that a reliable transportation system is the bloodline of the country’s modernization and progress, the lending institution sees the partnership as very appropriate with a shipping industry player like APFC.
“As a development bank, Land Bank of the Philippines supports this priority sector. We need this so that we can move people [and] transport our goods,” noted Joselito P. Gutierrez, senior vice president for agriculture and development lending sector at LandBank.
Identified as numbers 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22, these vessels are set to be enhanced iterations of APFC’s 10 ferries, which were secured during a refleeting program in 2010.
APFC’s existing fleet is composed of 12 vessels. They operate along the following routes: Batangas-Calapan (Mindoro), Bulalacao (Mindoro)-Caticlan (Aklan), Matnog (Sorsogon)-San Isidro (Samar), Bacolod-Iloilo, Liloan (Leyte)-Lipata (Surigao), Dumaguete (Negros Oriental)-Dapitan (Zamboanga del Norte), San Carlos (Negros Occidental)-Toledo (Cebu) and Cebu-Tubigon (Bohol).
Recently, the shipping firm opened the route of Jagna (Bohol)-Balbagon (Camiguin)-Opol (Cagayan de Oro).
With the ongoing construction of three more vessels and five Landbank-funded ships in the pipeline, FastCat is on track to meet its goal of having 20 modernized ferries operational by 2019.
By then, the company would also have opened additional routes, including Bulalacao (Mindoro) to Coron and Puerto Princesa (Palawan), Lucena to Marinduque and other parts of the Visayas and Mindanao.
In a sideline interview, Pastrana told the BusinessMirror that preparations are also being made for a Buliluyan (Palawan)-Kudat (Malaysia) route, which they hope to open “within the year or early next year.”
This signals the beginning of the company’s long-term plan to extend its services from domestic to regional destinations with 30 FastCats by 2020, he added.
For this initiative, APFC would need around P8 billion to build 18 ships in the next two years, Pastrana said.
To date, the company has already secured P2.8 billion in loans, of which P1.1 billion came from a credit transaction forged with RCBC on February 27 and the recently acquired P1.726 billion loan from LandBank.
“So far, we have negotiations in the pipeline with some other banks that I cannot disclose yet,” he said of their capitalization effort to raise the needed amount of around P6 billion.