PSE hikes capital-raising target to P170 billion

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) is jacking up significantly its target for capital-raising this year, with the stock market operator expecting a banner year for fundraising activities.

PSE president and CEO Ramon Monzon said that he sees 2025 to be “very successful year” for capital-raising, with the amount now seen to reach P170 billion, higher than the original P120 billion target for the year.

“Last year, about P82.4 billion were raised in the equities market. I was targeting a capital-raising amount of P120 billion for 2025, which is almost a 50-percent increase from the actual 2024,” Monzon said.

“Without including GCash (planned initial public offering), just going by capital-raising activities that there are already applications for and those that you would read in the press, we’re talking about P170 billion. We expect 2025 to be a very high capital raising year,” he said.

As of May 14, capital raising activities in the PSE amounted to P42.42 billion from one initial public offering (IPO), one follow-on offering (FOO) and five private placements.

Monzon said that in the pipeline, the PSE is expecting an additional P122.8 billion from the IPO of Maynilad Water Services Inc., stock rights offering of ACEN Corp. as well as follow-on offerings of Ayala Corp., Steniel Manufacturing Corp. and Alliance Global Group Inc.

“I don’t look at just IPOs when I talk about capital-raising. I am really looking at IPOs, FOOs, SROs and private placements because after all, the exchange is a platform where companies are supposed to raise capital, regardless whether it’s an IPO, FOO or SRO. Our job is to provide an efficient platform for these companies to raise capital,” Monzon said.

In terms of maiden offerings, the PSE wants to double last year’s number with a total of six IPOs targeted this year

Monzon earlier told The STAR that he is confident the country can still do more IPOs this year than last year despite a fresh wave of headwinds that can make market conditions unattractive for some IPO aspirants.

So far, only one company has gone public this year, with Top Line Business Development Corp. raising P732.6 million from its IPO last month.

Monzon said that the highly anticipated IPO of e-wallet giant GCash has yet to be finalized.

“GCash has been talking to us. While there has been no formal application yet, I know they are preparing to do an IPO later this year. As to the actual timing, we don’t know when it will be. There’s some issues that they are trying to resolve, I guess mainly the valuation and determining what size of IPO they should have that can be absorbed by the market,” he said.

To help drive more listings in the stock market, Monzon said the PSE holds a handholding program called the PSE listing engagement and assistance program (LEAP).

The PSE LEAP is program of the exchange that offers a one-stop shop service to potential listing applicants.

It provides guidance to clients via one-on-one advisory sessions, access to online pre-listing assessment tools and assistance in connecting potential clients to seasoned IPO advisors.

“As of today, a total of 80 companies are enrolled in this program. Out of these 80 companies, six are considered ready to conduct their IPOs within the next year and four of these companies have already, in fact, listed in the exchange,” Monzon said.

Aside from ongoing efforts to drive more listings in the stock market, Monzon said the PSE also has several product and policy developments in the pipeline to encourage more trading in the market.

He said these include the Global Philippine Depositary Receipts, a peso denominated instrument that represent economic, but not voting, interest in foreign-listed securities, with an option to convert to the underlying shares.

According to Monzon, the PSE has submitted its draft rules on Jan. 30 to the Securities and Exchange Commission and is currently awaiting approval.

Monzon said the PSE likewise plans to launch derivatives by 2026 and is actively engaging with other exchanges and foreign market participants to support the development of a derivatives market in the country.

He said also in the pipeline are the exchange-traded fund (ETF) rule amendments aimed at revitalizing the ETF market.

The PSE is finalizing the proposed ETF rule amendments to allow trust-type and actively managed ETFs, reduce capitalization requirements and enable funds to track foreign securities and alternative assets like cryptocurrencies, gold and commodities, among others.

Further, Monzon said the PSE is studying the establishment of market making rules for all product types to improve liquidity in the market.