By RUELLE CASTRO
The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) grew its profit by 11.6 percent to P417.51 million in the first half of the year from P374.2 million in the same period in 2022.
Revenues were down 12.9 percent to P740.09 million from the P849.24 million, attributed to a 20.8 percent decline in listing fees and another a 6.3 percent drop in trading related fees.
“Fund raising from the sale of primary and secondary shares slowed in the first six months with only P36.99 billion worth of capital raised from P 61.92 billion in the same period last year,” the PSE said.
From January to June, there were two initial public offerings (IPOs), two follow-on offerings (FOOs), three stock rights offerings (SROs), and six private placements (PPs), compared to eight IPOs, one SRO and four PPs last year.
“The capital raising pipeline in the first half was not as robust as expected. There are offerings targeted in the next two months and hopefully, there will be additional IPOs before the year ends,” said Ramon Monzon, PSE chief executive officer (CEO).
As of end-June, daily average value turnover dropped 4.4 percent to P6.98 billion, with foreign funds a net sell worth P25.43 billion.
“Costs were effectively managed as total expenses only increased by 5.0 percent to P 380.50 million,” the PSE also said.
The PSE it is targeting to migrate to the shortened settlement cycle of T+2 from the current T+3 settlement cycle by August 24.
The Securities Clearing Corporation of the Philippines (SCCP), a PSE unit that handles transaction facilitation for the stock market, is currently doing pre-launch activities with the relevant market participants to ensure a smooth transition to the new settlement cycle, it said.
“The shift to the shortened settlement cycle follows SCCP’s implementation of a new clearing and settlement system in March 2023. The system was provided by LSEG Technology, a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group,” the PSE said.
Meanwhile, former trade secretary Peter Favila joins the Philippine Stock Exchange as an independent director, 18 years since after a similar stint.
Favila was elected as independent director together with Andrew Jerome Gan at the PSE’s shareholders meeting late last week.
Favila was director of the PSE from 2002 to 2005 and for a short while, was chairman of the PSE. He served as trade secretary from 2005 to 2010 and after, joined the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas as a member of the Monetary Board (MB). He recently finished his second stint as MB private sector representative.
Gan was a director of the Capital Markets Integrity Corp. from 2014 to 2023. He is co-founder and managing director of Beacon Holdings Inc., Beacon Advisors Inc., Beacon Management Group Inc., and Fifi L’Amour Inc. Gan served as director and treasurer of Nuovo Moda Inc. and managing director of Globo Land Development Corp.
The 15-member PSE Board is comprised of one president-director, five broker-directors, and 9non-broker directors. Of the nine non-broker directors, at least five are independent directors and at least four are directors representing the interests of issuers, investors and other market participants.
Jose Pardo and Ramon Monzon were re-elected as chairman and CEO, respectively.
