Companies continue to raise funds from the stock market to finance expansion plans in line with the rapid growth of the Philippine economy.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in anticipation of companies tapping the equities and bond markets for fund raising, has been active in promoting efficiency-related measures.
This is to improve the quality of business regulation in line with the Duterte administration’s 10-point socio-economic agenda to increase business competitiveness.
One measure recently implemented is the shelf-registration program of SEC under the amended implementing rules and regulations of the Securities Regulation Code.
Under a shelf-registration program, securities to be issued in tranches may be registered for an offering to be made on a continuous or delayed basis for a period not exceeding three years.
This means the issuers can hold their capital raising activities as they are needed and/or when market conditions are favorable.
SEC also provided flexibility in the payment of registration fees. The fees are now payable per tranche of issuance and proportional to the issued value.
Among the companies that have filed for the shelf-registration program are Ayala Land Inc., DMCI Project Developers Inc., Ayala Corp., SM Prime Holding Inc., SM Investments Corp., San Miguel Corp. and Petron Corp.
Meanwhile, SEC reduced the number of documentary requirements for companies that plan to venture into financing or lending activities.
SEC chairperson Teresita Herbosa said the documentary requirements for financing companies and lending firms were reduced by consolidating some of the required documents and dispensing with redundant ones.
Herbosa said reducing the documentary requirements would ease the burden on the transacting public who no longer need to bring voluminous records and documents to SEC for the applications.
This would also speed up the processing for the issuance of certificates, as there would be less documents for inspection or evaluation.
Herbosa said SEC would continue to improve its services by eliminating excessive or inflexible administrative procedures and protracted decision-making processes that slow down public services.