PDEx expects new debt listings to hit P200B

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx), the country’s trading platform for fixed income securities, sees another record-setting year in terms of new debt listings this 2015.

PDEx president and chief operating officer Cesar Crisol said there is a big chance that total listings this year would shatter last year’s record volume of P191.85 billion and hit the P200-billion mark for the first time. 

“It is very possible if the PPPs (public-private-partnership projects) are accelerated,” Crisol said.

“It’s possible because we haven’t really developed the corporate bond market that much compared to our neighboring countries so we’re basically behind Malaysia, Thailand, even Indonesia we’re still behind them so we can still develop considering we have investors available to invest in these bonds,” he added.

Crisol said PDEx is expecting listing pace to pick up starting next month despite seeing only two in the first quarter of the year.

“I think starting April, we have some already lined up. Right now I think there are three or four already lined up,” he said.

Crisol said these firms eyeing to raise money from bond issuances are part of big conglomerates undertaking PPP projects.

“You’ve seen the conglomerates tie-up for big PPP projects so they’ll probably be tapping the market to finance these large PPP projects,” he said.

“Those who are engaging in infrastructure, these will be the same names. But there could be some new names that would undertake certain PPP projects. It’s within the same group, maybe it’s their subsidiaries who will tap the bond market,” Crisol added.

As to what has been seen in the past, Crisol said these companies are again tapping the bond market mostly to fund their respective capital expenditures.