Why did SEC okay Calata’s delisting sans offer to buy publicly owned shares

IN the following email to The Manila Times, Rosemarie Dela Cruz coursed through Due Diligencer a letter written by Tess Reyes and for emailing to this paper. The email’s contents are easy to understand as the letter suggests the difficulties of being public investors, who do not have and would never have any say on companies, which have either their common or non- voting preferred shares listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange ( PSE).

As the writer of Due Diligencer, I can only sympathize with the group associated with either Dela Cruz or Reyes. Will the group of Dela Cruz or Reyes go against Calata Corp., which unfortunately has already been delisted its common shares from the stock market?

As I have been writing in Due Diligencer, the contents of Reyes’ email are easy to under

stand, except for those who are not familiar with the operations of the stock market.

Dear Mr. Perez,

Hope this finds you well. We have met already at Dusit Thani sometime late 2017 when Calata’s delisting was hotly discussed by PSE, SEC ( Securities and Exchange Commission) and the many individual shareholders who were left ‘ in limbo’ as you wrote about in one of your columns ( Calata’s public investors in limbo).

During our meeting I mentioned with you that I created a group of some CAL ( Calata) shareholders and we were at a loss as to what else we can do to force CAL to do a tender offer. As you would have known later thru other CAL shareholders, we are in a worse situation now given that PSE has completely washed its hands by delisting CAL without a tender offer and SEC has not done anything significant after filing a case against Joseph Calata and some of his officers at the DoJ ( Department of Justice).

More CAL shareholders have approached me recently, two of them are the subject of your recent piece on CAL, Marco Pelayo and Albert David. Coincidentally, one PSE veteran who is now running both free and paid small stock shareholders/ traders group has reached out to me to present our case to two HOR members.

Sir, a smaller group ( from the more than 300) have indicated to pursue what they have suggested before, i. e. “running” a small ( because admittedly we have limited funds) yet effective media campaign so the government offices ( at least PSE, DoJ and Congress) will become interested to help in getting what is due us from CAL.

In view of the above, we wonder if it is possible for you to be our adviser/ consultant. If for whatever reason/ s, you are not allowed/cannot do it, would you please refer us to someone who is capable and willing?

Due Diligencer’s take

The question that officials of the SEC must answer is how the delisting has been done. What could be the role played by the executives of the PSE?

Both SEC officials and PSE executives should know what they have been doing as the regulators of listed stocks.

I thank both Dela Cruz and Reyes for reminding me about my piece on Calata dated Aug. 2, 2019. The title should speak for itself. Why did SEC officials and PSE executives agree to Calata’s delisting without allowing the public investors to dispose of their CAL common shares?

The rules on delisting should be amended for the sake of the public investors. After all, without the public, private companies would not be able to raise their outstanding capital stock that could either be common or non- voting preferred shares.

Yes, in writing Due Diligencer’s “Calata’s public investors in limbo,” I posed the question at the beginning of the column: “What happened to the public stockholders of listed companies that used to be listed but were either suspended or ordered closed by regulatory agencies?”

Only SEC officials, along with PSE’s top executives, should be able to answer said poser. Will they? Just asking.