The Philippine Stock Exchange said Monday it raised the minimum public float requirement for listed companies to qualify for inclusion in the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index to 15 percent from 12 percent.
Public float or free float represents the portion of shares in a listed corporation that are in the hands of public investors.
PSE president and chief executive Ramon Monzon said the adjustment was made in anticipation of the plan of the Securities and Exchange Commission to increase the minimum public ownership for publicly-listed companies.
The 15-percent public float requirement is not only a requirement for companies to qualify for PSEi inclusion but also for membership in sectoral indices.
The PSE said aside from raising the public float requirement, it also implemented other revisions on managing the PSEi index to ensure that the local bourse’s indices remained at par with global standards and responsive to the needs of the market.
Other salient revisions on the policy on index management include the schedule and the effectivity date of the recomposition. From the March and September schedules, the recomposition will now be in February and August.
The effectivity date will be at least five trading days after the announcement was made compared with the two-week lead time as observed in the past.
The PSE also reported that the PSEi would remain unchanged based on the review covering the January to December 2017 period. All sectoral indices, however, will see changes in their composition.
The financials index will remove Medco Holdings Inc. while the industrial index will add two new members”•Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc. and SFA Semicon Philippines Corp. but will lose six members including Crown Asia Chemicals Corp., Energy Development Corp., Holcim Philippines Inc., Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines Inc., Pryce Corp. and RFM Corp.
The holding firms will see the removal of Lodestar Investment Holdings Corp., Pacifica Inc. and Top Frontier Investment Holdings Inc.
The Property Sector will see the addition of Philippine Realty and Holdings Corp. and the exclusion of Araneta Properties Inc., Cyber Bay Corp. and MRC Allied Inc.
MacroAsia Corp., PhilWeb Corp. and Waterfront Philippines Inc will be part of the services index while 2Go Group Inc., Apollo Global Capital Inc., Island Information & Technology Inc., Premiere Horizon Alliance Corp., Travellers International Hotel Group Inc. and SBS Philippines Corp. will be removed from the index.
The mining and oil sector will add Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. and Century Peak Metals Holdings Corp. and remove Marcventures Holdings Inc.
The recomposition of indices will take effect on Feb. 19, 2018.
