PT&T hopeful PSE will lift share trade suspension soon
After complying with regulators' requirements, the Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (PT&T) hopes the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) will lift the suspension on the trading of its 800 million common shares this year.
PT&T shares have been voluntarily suspended for almost four years now, since December 13, 2004. Lifting the suspension will benefit consumers, employees, creditors and the investing public.
As early as 2017, when the telco’s new investors took over, PT&T wanted trading on its stocks to resume to raise fresh capital for expanding its broadband and data business and fund its bid to be the country’s third telco player.
"Having fulfilled the requirements set by the PSE, we should be allowed to resume trading and enact the future plans of the new shareholders and management team,” PT&T chief operating officer Miguel Bitanga stated.
A year ago, Menlo Capital Corp., jointly owned by Nickel Asia Corp. founder Salvador Zamora and and businessman Benjamin Bitanga, acquired substantial interest in PT&T from Republic Telecommunications Holdings, Inc.
"Whether from a perspective of compliance to the PSE or based on purely economic or marketdriven benefits, there should be no reason why the company shares should not be publicly traded again,” he added.
This should raise the telco’s capital to fund future plans, both within and outside of the fixed broadband space.
The shares of PT&T were last traded on Dec. 9, 2004, when it closed at 10.33 per share.
Resuming trading on the company’s shares would also boost PSE’s market capitalization by several billion pesos and the volume traded would benefit both the bourse and the investing public, according to James G. Velasquez, PT&T president and chief executive.
Furthermore, this allows the entry of new investors into PT&T for its bid to become the Philippines’ third telco player, he underscored.
Anyway, the company has the underlying assets and existing business to support its shares as well as competent management team and positive growth outlook.
Denying PT&T’s request to lift the trading suspension would be detrimental to all its creditors who recently secured court approval for its exit from corporate rehabilitation.
On August 6, 2018, the Regional Trial Court of Makati City, Branch 66 approved PT&T’s request to exit from rehabilitation, subject to its compliance with certain requirements in the approved Rehabilitation Plan.
Under a court-approved 14-year rehabilitation scheme approved 7 years ago, PT&T would pay out its 18.8-billion debts in the form of redeemable serial preferred shares.
In the fiscal year ending June, this year, PT&T reported a 137 million net income, from a net loss of 127 million in the same period last year.
The company hauled in 1211million net operating revenues for the 12 months ending June 30, 2018, up by 55 percent versus the comparable period, after acquiring more clients.
PT&T holds a 25-year telecom franchise, which allows the company to establish, maintain and operate both wired and wireless telecommunications systems for domestic and international communication in the Philippines.
Its existing, scalable network and infrastructure spans over 1,000 kilometers of pure fiber optic cables, enabling it to meet the network demands of customers in the Greater Manila area, Northern and Southern Luzon, as well as Cebu.
PT&T’s high speed broadband service is available in the Greater Manila Area, Northern and Southern Luzon.