SM Prime Holdings, Inc. remains keen on the P122.8-billion Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike project (LLEDP) amid wavering interest from its consortium with the country’s biggest companies that is potentially making a bid for the government’s biggest public private partnership (PPP) project to date.

SM Prime President Hans T. Sy speaks before stockholders during the company’s annual stockholders meeting in Makati City in this April 19, 2011 file photo. — BW FILE PHOTO
 

“I was asked because there are mixed reactions from the consortium. 

Tinanong ako, my answer is ‘very interested pa rin’ (I was asked and my answer is ‘still very interested’),” SM Prime President Hans T. Sy said in an interview last week.

SM Prime is part of Trident Infrastructure and Development Corp., or “Team Trident”, that also includes property developers Ayala Land, Inc. and Megaworld Corp. and conglomerate Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc.

Team Trident is one of the groups that pre-qualified for the LLEDP. The two other pre-qualified bidders are Malaysia’s Alloy-PAVI-Hanshin LLEDP Consortium and San Miguel Holdings Corp.

Team Trident Spokesperson Roman V. Azanza III described the Laguna project as the “most complex PPP to date.”

“As currently structured, the project remains both economically unviable and exposes the concessionaire to extensive risks; and as a consequence, is unbankable at this time,” Mr. Azanza said.

The PPP project involves a 47-kilometer flood control dike, on top of which will be a six-lane expressway from Taguig City to Los Baños, budgeted for around P64.914 billion; and the reclamation of 700 hectares west of the expressway-dike for about P57.897 billion.

“Team Trident is working with the grantor, through bidders’ one-on-one sessions and comments to bid bulletins, to find solutions that will address the main outstanding structural issues in order to create a sustainable and viable project,” Mr. Aranza added.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is issuing a new bid bulletin to address mounting concerns over the project, including claims of pre-qualified bidders that the project will cost significantly more than official estimates.

The bidding date has been moved to Jan. 7, 2016, according to the DPWH Web site. The notice of award will be on Feb. 19, and the signing of the concession agreement will be on March 18.

Ten PPP deals cumulatively worth P189 billion have been awarded since the infrastructure program was launched in late 2010.