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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Bourse taps First Metro, BDO to handle share sale

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The Philippine Stock Exchange has tapped two banks to handle a planned share sale that could potentially raise as much as P2.76 billion in proceeds.

PSE chief operating officer Roel Refran said the exchange hired BDO Capital and Investments Corp. and First Metro Investments Corp. as domestic underwriters for the follow on-offering.

Refran said the exchange was hoping to conduct the follow-on offering before the end of the year.

The PSE in July said it planned to sell up to 11.5 million common shares through a follow-on offering as part of the company’s move to reduce brokers’ ownership in the stock exchange to 20 percent as prescribed under the Securities Regulation Code.

The shares will come from the unissued portion of the company’s authorized capital stock.

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The exchange based on the stock’s closing price of P240 per share on Friday could raise as much as P2.76 billion from the sale of 11.5 million common shares.

The local bourse said it would use the proceeds from the fund-raising activity to finance the acquisition of PDS Holdings Corp. and working capital requirements of the exchange.    

The PSE wants to acquire a majority stake in PDS Holdings, which serves as the holding company for fixed-income trading platform Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp., Philippine Depositary and Trust Corp. and Philippine Securities Settlement Corp.

The PDS acquisition has been valued at P2 billion.

The SEC has been pushing the PSE to limit the ownership of stockbrokers in the exchange to 20 percent to comply with the single industry holding requirement under the SRC since 2005.

The PSE has failed to comply despite several reminders, warnings and extension of time for the compliance. The SEC in 2007 imposed a fine of P100,000 against the PSE and P100 for every day of delay. 

Meanwhile, Refran said the PSE also re-filed its petition with the Philippine Competition Commission regarding the proposed takeover of PDS.

The PCC last month said the PSE withdrew its petition after the commission requested additional information on the planned transaction.

Refran said the PSE withdrew the application of acquire PDS after signing more share purchase agreements with several shareholders of the PDS.

“When we first filed with PCC, our ownership in PDS was only at 30 percent but now we are at 51 percent and in the next couple of weeks, we will be able to close more deals to bring us to about two-thirds,” Refran said.

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