Manila: AGI proposes Makati Skytrain

Infracorp. Development Inc., the newly formed infrastructure arm of Alliance Global Group Inc., the holding company of tycoon Andrew Tan, submits an unsolicited proposal to the government to build a 2-kilometer monorail project called Skytrain that will link Fort Bonifacio to the MRT Guadalupe Station, which is expected to benefit around 60,000 to 100,000 passengers daily.  The project will utilize the automated cable-propelled monorail technology to reduce travel time from Fort to MRT Guadalupe to five minutes. A station will be built in Guadalupe, Makati near the MRT station and another in Uptown Bonifacio, a township development of AGI’s real estate arm Megaworld, at no cost to the government.

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Alliance Global Group Inc., the holding company of tycoon Andrew Tan, is diversifying into infrastructure and proposed a two-kilometer monorail project that will connect Fort Bonifacio to Metro Rail Transit Line 3 Guadalupe station in Makati City.

AGI said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it formed Infracorp. Development Inc. as an infrastructure subsidiary to handle infrastructure projects and participate in the government’s public-private partnership deals.

AGI said Infracorp. submitted this week an unsolicited proposal to the government to build a two-kilometer monorail called Skytrain which is expected to benefit around 60,000 to 100,000 passengers daily.

“Given the country’s strong and stable economy, we see a huge opportunity to invest in infrastructure. We are excited to participate and optimistic about the government’s aggressive push for infrastructure developments,” AGI executive director and Infracorp. president Kevin Tan said.

The Skytrain project, which will utilize the automated cable-propelled monorail technology, is expected to reduce travel time from Fort to MRT Guadalupe to five minutes.

Under the proposal, a station will be built in Guadalupe near the MRT station and another in Uptown Bonifacio, a township development of AGI’s real estate arm Megaworld, at no cost to the government.

Once approved, the Skytrain monorail project will take three years to construct and it could be interconnected with the subway system project passing through Fort Bonifacio that the government is set to build.

“Funding of the project will be internally-generated as part of AGI’s existing capex program. We cannot disclose the exact amount of the investment yet until the government gives us the go-signal to proceed. We will follow the rightful process of this exercise,” Tan said.

Aside from Skytrain, Infracorp. is also looking into other potential infrastructure projects, particularly on transport solutions, in several business districts around Metro Manila and in key growth areas around the country.

This is not the first time that Andrew Tan group took an interest in the government’s infrastructure projects.  AGI’s property unit Megaworld Corp. earlier teamed up with Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc., Ayala Land Inc. and SM Prime Holdings Inc. to bid for the P123.8-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway and Dike project.

The project includes the construction of a 47-kilometer expressway and a 45-kilometer flood control dike, and the reclamation of around 700 hectares of land in the western part of Laguna Lake.  The government declared a failed bidding in March 2016.

Courtesy: The Manila Standard | October 11, 2017  | Jenniffer B. Austria

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