PLDT Planning to Borrow Around ₱45 Billion to Settle Debt

PLDT Inc is looking to borrow an estimated ₱45 billion in 2023 – 2024 to settle outstanding debts and work out the dividends of shareholders with the target of stabilizing their financials by the year 2025.

PLDT has debts coming from its budget overspending of ₱48 billion incurred last 2019 to 2022. Aside from this, PLDT will also use the financing to carry out its fulfillment to stakeholders as it makes an effort to improve its balance sheet and be more stable at the earliest 2025.

PLDT President and CEO Alfredo Panlilio told stakeholders that PLDT is working on consolidating the budget overruns. Aside from this, Panlilio likewise mentioned that there is a possibility of experiencing additional debt that can affect their income in the short term.

Panlilio stated that the ₱48 billion overspends were the majority of PLDT’s decision to boost their 5G assets to improve their network. Aside from this, PLDT was reported to have underinvested from 2016 to 2018 which triggered aggressive spending in 2019.

After obtaining the 5G assets, PLDT faced challenges in 2020 when the products arrived during the pandemic. With this, PLDT failed to entice more customers during the first rollout of 5G services since buyers were financially affected by the pandemic and the recession.

With the 5G assets sitting in warehouses, PLDT expects to write off an estimated ₱15 billion and ₱55 billion in assets for 2022 due to depreciation.

PLDT is now expecting the net income to dip in 2021 in comparison to their 2021 figure of ₱26.37 billion.

Panlilio mentions that “Moving forward, we believe we can sustain a 60 percent dividend payment and for our earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization to remain strong,”

Source: Philstar