THE Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) said it is still confident of hitting the P200 billion worth of funds raised from the exchange this year, despite only getting a fraction of its target almost halfway into 2016, as it believes more firms will list after the election.
PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat said, as of May 6, there were only about P13.44 billion in funds raised from the exchange’s platform, or just a fraction of the target, but there’s a pipeline of initial public offerings (IPOs) that may happen once the election-season heat dies down.
“If you look at our IPO pipeline, it is quite robust. We hope we could meet it [P200-billion goal]…. Beginning of the second half of this year… at least we have one transaction to restart the market, and others are only waiting for that first to restart,” Sicat said after the local bourse’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Saturday.
Sicat, who was reelected as the bourse’s president for the sixth-year running, however, said at the end of July or August the PSE, based on the initial transactions from IPOs and stock rights offerings, will again assesses whether the P200-billion full-year goal is attainable.
The IPO will come from the sectors such as real estate, services, industrial and even construction.
“It depends on who finishes all the processing first,” Sicat said when asked which of the firms will list first after the elections.
To date, there are about 264 listed firms at the PSE.
Roel Refran, PSE’s chief operations officer, said by July the bourse is expecting between P40 billion and P50 billion from capital-raising activities through IPOs, from at least four companies engaged in real estate, services, industrial and even construction business.
“Yes, it is still quite small compared to the P200-billion target, but we are hopeful the market would restart after the elections,” Refran said. So far, two applications for IPO have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), such as that of the P40-billion IPO of cement firm Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc. and Villar Group’s P787-million listing of Golden Haven Memorial Park Inc.
Meanwhile, PSE stockholders retained almost all of last year’s board of directors with the exception of David Chua, who was replaced by Wilson Sy of brokerage firm Wealth Securities Inc.
Other board of directors of the PSE for the year are Annabelle Chua of Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co.; Robert Vergara of pension fund Government Service Insurance System; Amor Iliscupidez of San Miguel Corp. Retirement Plan; and Edgardo Lacson of Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Representing the brokers were businessman Eusebio Tanco, Emmanuel Bautista, Vivian Yuchengco, Francis Chua, Eddie Gobing and Alejandro Yu.
Jose Pardo retains his chairman position. He also sits as PSE’s independent director alongside Ramon Monzon and Dakila Fonacier.a