Capital raised through the local stock exchange reached P188 billion in 2018, up 12.5 percent from P167 billion recorded in 2017, Philippine Stock Exchange president Ramon Monzon said Wednesday.
Monzon said in an interview this year’s figure, while below the target of P200 billion, was still not bad considering the volatile trading conditions during the year.
The PSE is expecting fund raising activities to reach P200 billion again in 2019.
“We did not hit P200 billion this year but we try to hit P200 billion for next year,” Monzon said.
He conceded that reaching the 2019 target would be a challenge considering that most of the big banks had completed their fund raising activities in 2018.
Most banks are also going to the bond market for their fund raising activities after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas released new guidelines.
Monzon said he wanted more initial public offerings as well as backdoor listings to meet the P200-billion target for 2019.
Del Monte Philippines, AirAsia and Cal-Comp Technology (Philippines) Inc. earlier dropped their share sale plans due to weak market conditions.
Aside from potential IPOS, the local bourse is looking at possible follow-on offerings from companies that conducted backdoor listings.
Among these are Dennis Uy-led PH Resorts Group and Udenna Corp., which acquired Philippine H2O Ventures and ISM Communications Corp., respectively, and Tiger Resorts Asia Ltd. which purchased Asiabest Group International Inc.
Only one company, D.M. Wenceslao & Associates Inc., conducted an IPO this year, raising P8.1 billion in proceeds.
Two of country’s largest banks, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. and Bank of the Philippine Islands, conducted rights offering at the start of the year, raising a combined P110 billion in fresh capital.
Several companies also conducted rights offering, namely PetroEnergy Resources Corp., Robinsons Land Corp. and Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc.