The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) hopes it can attract as much as P120 billion worth of fundraising next year.
Ramon Monzon, PSE president, said this will be a 50 percent increase from the P79 billion raised this year.
“That includes follow-on offering, stock rights offering and private placements,” Monzon said on the sidelines of the SEC-PSE Corporate Governance Forum on Thursday.
The PSE is looking at six initial public offerings (IPO) worth P40 billion, he added.
“This year, we only had three IPOs, all small ones, but we had big, preferred follow-on offerings,” Monzon said.
The PSE eyed six IPOs for 2024 but only three managed to push through with their plans amid challenging market conditions — OceanaGold (Philippines) Inc., Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. and NexGen Energy Corp.
Monzon, however, earlier pegged the fundraising for next year to reach P150 billion.
He said uncertainty in the market is high following the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.
Monzon expressed concern massive deportation, including, Filipino illegal immigrants, could result in a drop in remittances “which is a very important stabilizing factor for the economy.”
Trump’s plan “to penalize US companies that go outside will impact on our IT-BPM industry which has about 1.9 million employees,” Monzon added. “We have uncertainties because we still don’t know what will happen.”
Earlier, Monzon said of those previously identified to do a public listing, Maynilad Water Service Inc. has yet to file for such but the PSE already talked to the company.
The PSE is also waiting for the SM Group’s final decision if it will list some of its mall operations under the PSE’s real estate investment trust.
Globe Telecom Inc.’s GCash IPO, meanwhile, will have to adjust its valuation after the spate of recent capital infusion by new investors.
GCash’s valuation ballooned to $5 billion in August after the Mitsubishi UFJ Finance Group acquired an 8 percent stake for $393 million.
Earlier this month, Top Line Business Development Corp. moved its P3.16 billion IPO, supposedly set this week, citing the request by investors for more time to study its share sale.
