The PSE 'continues' suspensions of 9 zombie companies

The PSE announced on Friday that the following nine companies had failed to submit Annual Reports: Abra Mining & Industrial Corporation [AR, suspended 2021], Cyber Bay Corporation [CYBR, suspended 2021], Globalport 900, Inc. [PORT, suspended 2014], IP E-Game Ventures, Inc. [EG, suspended 2017], Manila Jockey Club, Inc. [MJC, suspended 2023], MJC Investments Corporation [MJIC, suspended 2023], Philab Holdings Corp. [DNA, suspended 2018], Philippine National Construction Corporation [PNC, suspended 2008], Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, Inc. [PNX, suspended 2024]. Normally, non-compliance with this rule would trigger a trading suspension, but as the PSE notes, all of these nine companies are already suspended, so their trading will simply “remain suspended until further notice.”

  MB BOTTOM-LINE:  This issue is a personal pet peeve of mine, so please just let me say the thing and get it out of my system. The Rules say that the PSE “shall” initiate delisting procedures against companies that remain in a suspended state for the entire three-month period. The Rules do not give the PSE any discretion to allow companies like these to exist beyond that threshold. And yet, as I’ve included above, you can see there are companies that have been suspended for 17 years (PNC). Even the “youngest” suspension on that list, PNX, has been active for nearly a year. According to the Rules, PNX should have been delisted in June of last year. Has this weakness made non-compliance a non-issue for bad ownership groups? I’ll let you decide.

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