Stockbroker Abacus Securities Corp. said investors may have to wait until 2025 for the planned initial public offering (IPO) of the Sy family’s SM Prime Holdings Inc. real estate investment trust (REIT) and Enrique Razon’s Prime Infrastructure Inc.
Financial technology firm Mynt may instead opt for an overseas listing, Abacus said.
Nicky Franco, Abacus Securities head of research, in a briefing with clients late last week said this is based on the recent pronouncement of Ramon Monzon, Philippine Stock Exchange president, that he is looking at a P40 billion aggregate IPO proceeds this year out of six listings.
“This means the five or six companies that will raise funds through an IPO this year will average only about P8 billion or so in terms of capital raising each,” he said.
“Basically, that really precludes SM Prime infra which is looking to raise about a billion dollars for SM REIT, Prime Infra a very large number as well,” he added.
Prime Infra earlier said it eyes to raise as much as P33 billion.
As for Mynt, the fintech arm of Globe Telecom Inc., Franco said odds are likely for the company to tap funds from overseas amid its effort to be IPO ready this year.
“Recall that management consistently said last year that they want to be IPO ready by the end of 2023. So definitely they would have already done a lot of groundwork preparatory work for that. And we believe that odds favor that Mynt will list this year. But it will be done overseas, unfortunate for us. But I think that it will be positive for Globe in the long run, because they really need the capital to continue their aggressive expansion strategy,” he said.
The local stock market is poised for a “leap” this year amid improving fundamental though some hiccups are still on the horizon, Franco added.
In particular, he said the economy may “undershoot” the government’s 6 percent gross domestic product growth for the year, with the fourth quarter growth likely at the lower end of the target.
“We’re actually looking at 5 percent for 2024,” he said, noting an economy that was still reeling from the lingering impact of tight monetary policy last year, as well as the very high rice prices, El Niño and China’s weak economy,” Abacus said..
