Officials of lending firm Asialink Finance on October 20 expressed confidence in hitting their 25-30 percent loans disbursement target this 2025, especially with the $75 million capital boost it secured from Standard Chartered Bank. During the signing ceremony in a hotel in Mandaluyong City for the loan facility, Robert Jordan Jr., Asialink Finance Corporation Group Chief Executive Officer, said they intend to end the year with a loan portfolio of P48.7 billion. He explained that with around P3.3 billion loan disbursements monthly, they are on track to hit their target to finance more micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) nationwide, from their current roster of clients of around 100,000 MSMEs. “So we think we can, by next year, we can hit more than P4.5 billion monthly disbursements. And I feel confident that the market's there,” he said. With the additional capital, the lending firm intends to increase its branches, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, from around 500 branches to date. In an interview on the sidelines of the event, Jordan said bulk or around 30-40 percent of their loans are extended to logistics-related businesses. Although MSMEs are a risky market given their generally lesser access to credit compared to big businesses, he said the amount extended to these businesses is way lower, at an average of P800,000. Jordan, however, expressed confidence about the quality of their customers, given their non-performance loan (NPL) ratio of around 1.5 percent, and the requirement for the borrowers to have collateral. “This is the reason why we can be a bit aggressive (in lending)is because our NPL is low,” he said. PLANNED IPO Meanwhile, the company’s planned initial public offering (IPO) will likely be done in 2027, instead of 2028 as announced earlier. Jordan said they have a covenant with their creditors to meet the debt-to-equity ratio of around 3.5 percent before they can go ahead with the IPO. “So, I think with our expansion, we might hit that limit by 2027. And by which time we have to explore ways of raising more capital to be able to bring back our debt-to-equity ratio to an acceptable level, which we cannot exceed,” he said. To date, the company’s debt-to-equity ratio is around 2.2 to 2.3 percent, he said. For 2026, Jordan said they are looking to get additional capital of around P30-P40 billion from foreign lenders. He said they have three options to raise funds -- bank lending, IPO, and issuance of preferred shares. ASIALINK FACEBOOK PAGE PHOTO