The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) is expecting capital raising to reach P120 billion in 2025, up 51 percent from P79 billion this year.
PSE president and chief executive Ramon Monzon said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Thursday that capital raising is expected to pick up next year after tepid activity in 2024.
The P120 billion capital raising target for this year will include follow-on offerings, stock rights offerings, and private placements.
“Next year, I think we can do about P120 billion. This year, we only have three initial public offerings (IPOs), and these are small ones. But we also had big preferred and follow-on offerings,” Monzon said.
The three companies that went public this year were OceanaGold Philippines Inc., renewable firm Citicore Renewable Energy Corp., and NexGen Energy Corp.
Top Line Business Development Corp., a Cebu-based fuel retailer, earlier postponed its planned P3.2 billion IPO to the first quarter of next year amid volatile market conditions.
Meanwhile, Monzon is still hopeful that the PSE could finalize a deal to acquire the Philippine Dealing System Holdings. Corp. (PDS), even as negotiations are ongoing.
The PSE owns 20.98 percent of the issued and outstanding capital stock of PDS Holdings, the operator of the country’s fixed-income trading platform. The PSE seeks to acquire up to 100 percent of PDS to unify the capital markets.
Monzon said the PSE is still in talks with existing shareholders of PDS, including the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP), the Singapore Stock Exchange, Whistler Technology, Tata Consultancy Services, San Miguel Corp., and the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted the PSE in December 2023 exemptive relief that will enable it to acquire full ownership of PDS.
The exemptive relief will allow the PSE to exceed the 20-percent ownership cap in a single industry on an exchange.
