MANILA – State-run Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) said it is eyeing to raise at least PHP10 billion from bond issuance this year.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 2025 Annual Reception for the Banking Community at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) office in Manila over the weekend, LandBank president and chief executive officer Lynette Ortiz said they are hoping to secure all approvals for the possible onshore bonds issuance this year.

"What we'd like actually is to really further grow our green portfolio, our sustainability portfolio, and we want to match it with bonds that are as well, either green, blue, or sustainable, sustainable-linked bonds. So, yes, we're working on that and it depends on all the approvals," Ortiz said.

Ortiz said the bank needs to secure approval from the Monetary Board (MB) of the BSP, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and the Office of the President.

"The approval process for LandBank is a bit long. Because on top of course the usual MB, we need NEDA and ultimately we need the Office of the President's approval. That's in our charter," she said.

"So hopefully, if we get our charter changed, we want our ability to go to market to be swifter so that all of these approvals and basically requisite steps, can hopefully be shortened, because by the time we get all of those approvals, it's very possible that the markets would have changed already," Ortiz added.

According to Ortiz, the bank is hoping to raise a minimum of PHP10 billion from the issuance.

"So we obviously have to see interest, right? But I guess at the minimum we're hoping we could go 10 billion at the minimum and hopefully there will be some oversubscription for investors who really believe that, you know, in the bank," she said.

She said LandBank prefers to issue onshore bonds to avoid foreign exchange (FX) risks.

The tenor, meanwhile, will be a minimum of five years.

"Onshore first, peso, because our balance sheet is really mostly a peso balance sheet, you know our client base, right? And the projects, the renewable projects, clean energy, they're all peso based, so we don't want to take unnecessary FX risks," Ortiz said.

Financially strong

Ortiz, meanwhile, reiterated that LandBank's financial strength and stability, following the bank’s P50-billion contribution to the Maharlika Investment Fund.

She said the regulatory relief sought from the BSP was a proactive measure to maintain resilience.

"We have had discussion before that the regulatory relief was actually good for two or three years and that was really viewed from our perspective as a buffer but certainly if you look at our financials, you look at our numbers, we have no need for it," said Ortiz.

LandBank earlier disclosed that its capital adequacy ratio, which is a critical benchmark of financial health, remains at 16.42 percent which is well above the 10 percent regulatory threshold. (PNA)