P2-B CREDIT FACILITY SET FOR COSIQUIEN’S BUSINESS

The country’s largest lender BDO Unibank has opened a P2billion credit facility for the real estate business of young tycoon Michael Cosiquien, cofounder of Megawide Construction Corp., who is now building his own business empire.

The P2-billion loan facility was created byBDOfor the iLand Bay Plaza project of Cosiquienled Isoc Land, BDOsaid in a statement yesterday.

iLand Bay Plaza is a 12-story mixed-use development along Macapagal Boulevard, Pasay City with 23,541 square meters of commercial office and retail space.

“It is designed to be an energy-efficient green office building with an intelligent building management system and 24/7 backup power supply to meet the exacting demands of BPO (business process outsourcing) and KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) companies,” BDOsaid.

The parent company, Isoc Holdings Inc., also has interests in logistics via Orca Cold Chain Solutions. It is also involved in power and infrastructure with the proposed common telecommunication towers project.

Through Isoc Infrastructures,

Cosiquien’s group has teamed up with Malaysia’s OCK Group Berhad to propose to build 25,000 cell towers across the Philippines in seven years, a project estimated to cost around P100 billion. This is to heed the government’s common tower policy, which aims to encourage telco players to share their tower assets ahead of the much-awaited entry of a third telco player.

By sharing tower assets, the government hopes that telco providers can pass on lower costs to their subscribers.

On the P2-billion loan facility for Isoc Land, BDO senior executive vice president Walter Wassmer and Cosiquien signed the loan agreement on Aug. 28.

Cosiquien has trimmed his interest in Megawide as part of a two-year transition whereby the young tycoon is seen to exit Megawide to focus on his familyowned businesses under ISOC.

This is seen to be an amicable transition phase as Cosiquien devotes more management time to his own business. Cofounder Edgar Saavedra, who has already bought the initial bloc sold by Cosiquien, is seen taking up other shares that the latter will give up.