SUBIC, ZAMBALES — Agila Subic, a Cerberus-run industrial facility in Subic, is open to expanding its site by as much as 50 hectares to fulfill operational requirements of existing tenants, its top official said on Thursday.
The 310-hectare facility may add piers or develop land for tenant use, subject to approval from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and depending on demand, Agila Subic General Manager Mark Glenn D. Milan said in an interview with BusinessWorld.
“It will depend on the event of how we see the necessities of our current tenants, but we have now additional space that we see might be used for extra facilities,” he said.
“That is a component of our capacities on the location to optimize the usage of the ability,” he added.
US investment firm Cerberus took control of the ability in 2022 and renamed it Agila Subic Facility after the collapse of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction-Philippines, Inc. in 2019.
South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, the Philippine Navy, global subsea cable firm SubCom, and logistics provider V2X currently lease portions of the Agila Subic Facility under agreements starting from eight to fifteen years, Mr. Milan said.
The three private firms share 220 hectares of the world, with the remaining 90 hectares being rented to the Philippine Navy, he added.
“They’re still within the aspect of settling in,” he said, adding that when the lessees are fully established, they’ll be in a greater position to evaluate whether or not they need more room. “We have to be ready for that.”
Agila Subic expects its tenants to hunt ways to reinforce operations and maximize the usage of leased land, he added. “They’ve to repeatedly improve their capacities to extend the business opportunity for them to make use of the land.”
“After we lease out space, we don’t lease it prefer it’s just an office… With us, it’s the entire facility, tailored to the operational requirements of the corporate,” he said.
Mr. Milan said Agila Subic and its tenants have collectively invested around $1 billion to upgrade and modernize the shipyard.
“That covers every little thing already from the initial investment condition to the capital expenditures that it would love to should support the improvements of the facilities, after which the continuing renovations and enhancements that our tenants will need for them to operationalize the business,” he said. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio