Landbank renews offer for PDS stake

MANILA, Philippines — State-run Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) has put forward anew an offer to acquire a controlling stake in the country’s fixed income exchange after the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) refused to engage the government financial institution (GFI) in a bidding war.

Landbank president and CEO Alex Buenaventura said in an interview at the launch of the automated clearing house dubbed InstaPay at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the GFI issued a fresh offer letter to the shareholders of the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDS).

“We reissued a fresh offer letter last Friday to all PDS shareholders because the first round which we did last March, not too many accepted our offer,” he said.

The PDS operates trading, clearing, and settlements for bonds namely the Philippine Dealing Exchange Corp., the Philippine Depository Trust Corp, and the Philippine Securities Settlement Corp.

PDS is no longer running the foreign exchange dollar and peso market after the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) tapped Bloomberg as the new “calculation agent” for the foreign exchange market.

Buenaventura said the offer, valid for the next 30 days, is the same as the offer made last March. Landbank could spend as much as P2.25 billion to raise its stake in PDS from the current level of 1.56 percent.

Last March, Landbank has offered to acquire 66.67 percent of PDS for P1.5 billion or about P360 per share. This was better than the P320 per share price tag offered by PSE in June 2017.

“We reissued another offer letter last Friday, that’s for a 30-day period for the same amount of price P360 per share,” he said.

The BSP has already purchased the 23.47 percent stake of BAP in PDS for P469 million in June last year, as well as the 0.56 percent interest of the Investment House Association of the Philippines.

It has signed an agreement to purchase the eight percent interest of Whistler Technologies Systems Inc. for P160 million and offered to acquire the four percent stake of Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. for P80 million.

Other shareholders of PDS include the Singapore Stock Exchange with 20 percent, San Miguel Corp. with 20 percent, and state-run Development Bank of the Philippines with a little over three percent.

The PSE has been increasing its stake in PDS in its bid to merge the country’s equities and fixed income bourses.

Buenaventura said one shareholder has already accepted its offer, but refused to divulge the identity as it is bound by a confidentiality agreement.

 “We’re quite confident because the PSE has already pulled out from the intent to acquire majority of PDS, so that leaves Landbank as the only interested party now. Our offer is P360, which is higher than their offer before at P320 and our offer is in cash, PSE’s offer was in stocks,” he said.