Auditing and consulting firm Deloitte is hoping the 6.4 percent economic growth projected for the Philippines next year will translate to a robust initial public offering (IPO).
Darren Ng, Deloitte partner at the firm’s transaction and accounting support, said the Philippine IPO landscape is likely to see a continued focus on the energy and resources sector, while infrastructure and gaming might also tap into the stock market funding next year.
“The word is cautious optimism. If you look at what’s in the pipeline for Philippines, there should be more IPOs happening in 2025 (in a) mix of industries,” Ng said, citing two gaming companies.
Ng said the Philippines in the first half of the year managed to encourage $203 million worth of IPOs despite having only three initial listings, compared to last year’s eight with the amount reaching $81 million.
“There’s actually an increase in the amount of IPO raised, even though the number of IPOs have decreased from last year,” he said.
“Compared to last year, it’s $972 million in market cap this year, compared to $287 million last year. This is also a significant increase from last year,” he added.
According to Ng, the optimism in the energy and resources sector to do IPO in the Philippines could be credited to the Philippine government allowing full foreign ownership in the sector.
“…we see strong interest from companies going for listing in this sector…full foreign ownership of renewable energy covers a very a wide spectrum of the energy and resource market, from exploration, from development, solar, wind, hydro, ocean,” he said.
“We do expect that this trend of focus in the energy and resource market (will) continue for the
Philippines Stock Exchange,” he added.
Ng said it also helped that regulators in the Philippines reduced the transaction cost in the local stock market.
Deloitte in its Southeast Asia Mid-Year IPO Snapshot 2024 released earlier said the Philippines ranked fourth at the Southeast Asia leaderboard comprising 14 percent of the $1.4 billion IPO raised across the region, with two of the top 10 listings in the region — the $104 million IPO of OceanaGold (Philippines) Inc. and the $90 million IPO of Citicore Renewable Energy Corp.
Deloitte said the Southeast Asia IPO capital market saw 67 IPOs in the first half of 2024, with $1.4 billion funds raised and an IPO market capitalization of $5.8 billion.
Last year, there were 85 IPOs with $3.4 billion in IPO proceeds and IPO market capitalization of $20.1 billion.
Deloitte noted a 21 percent decrease in the number of new IPOs, a 71 percent drop in market capitalization and a 59 percent decline in the amount raised.
