Conglomerate San Miguel Corp. agreed to sell its four-percent stake in Philippine Dealing System & Holdings Corp. worth P80 million to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
The PSE said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Monday it signed an agreement with San Miguel to acquire 250,000 common shares equivalent to four percent of the total issued and outstanding stock of PDSHC.
The PSE now owns of 61.03 percent of PDSHC after buying the San Miguel shares.
The PSE earlier signed similar purchase agreements with Bankers Association of the Philippines, Whistler Technologies Services Inc., Investment Houses Association of the Philippines and Financial Executives Association of the Philippines.
Other major shareholders of PDS that have not sold their shares in PDS to PSE include Singapore Exhcnage Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Asia Pacific Philippines, Philippine America Life and General Insurance Co., Development Bank of the Philippines, Social Security System and Citibank NA.
The PSE has been acquiring stakes in PDS, which operates the country’s local bond market, as part of a move to merge the two exchanges.
“From a corporate standpoint, maintaining the business operations of both the PSE and PDSHC while reducing operational costs through synergies can result in greater business scalability and profitability,” the PSE said.
“As the two companies have highly similar and integrated functions, there should be synergies that could be realized particularly from an infrastructure standpoint, particularly on the technology side,” the PSE said.
The bourse said the single exchange setup also helps achieve efficiencies, reduce risks and facilitate the development of new products.
The purchase is subject to the approval of government agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.