PSE rights offering priced at P252/share

THE Philippine Stock Exchange or rights offering (SRO) at P252 apiece, a move that will allow the bourse to raise up to P2.9 billion fresh funds.

The PSE is planning to issue up acquisition of Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDS) and also reduce the combined stake of as mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The offer period has been moved to March 12-16 from February 26 to March 2 due to “unfavorable global market conditions.”

BDO Capital and Investment Corp. and the Metrobank Group’s First Metro Investment Corp. have been named lead underwriters.

underwriters to our SRO effectively reduces the ownership of brokers in the exchange to below 20 percent. Compliance with the Securities Regulation Code on the 20 percent maximum broker ownership in the exchange has finally been achieved,” PSE President Ramon Monzon said.

“The road to compliance was a long multi-step process which concludes with the SRO. It took time as part of the process involved the revocation of the trading participant status of inactive brokers and this required a period of six months to afford said inactive brokers with due process. But we were committed and focused all throughout the process and we are happy to see its completion and conclusion,” he added.

Monzon said the PSE would be introducing monitoring and trading mechanisms to ensure that broker ownership would not breach the limit.

“Many new things are happening at the exchange and we are quite excited to enter this new chapter in our history as we work towards a more developed capital market for investing public,” he also said.

The PSE, meanwhile, continues to face hurdles with its PDS acquisition with state-owned Land Bank looking to acquire 66.67 percent.

SEC chairperson Teresita Herbosa has said the matter would boil down to negotiations with PDS stakeholders and last week she said the corporate regulator would grant exemptive relief “once everything is clear on who will win the price war.”