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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

3 more firms may tap IPO market this year - PSE President Sicat

Three more companies in the manufacturing and industrial sectors may tap the IPO market this year, following Golden Haven and Cemex Holdings Philippines, PSE President Hans Sicat told Bloomberg TV Philippines.

“Directly in our pipeline are about three more in addition to the Cemex offering. Meaning, in different stages of preparation that we know of. There have been more discussions of others but I’m not sure where they are in the process,” Sicat told Bloomberg TV Philippines.

Golden Haven, the first memorial park to list in the local bourse, raised P790 million from selling shares for the first time to the public last month. It re-opened the IPO market after a seven-month lull. Cement maker Cemex followed Golden Haven and raised P21.84 billion pesos. Cemex will list in the PSE on Monday, April 18.

With the revitalization of the IPO market, other forms of share sales including private placements are also taking off, Sicat said at the sidelines of Security Bank's 65th year anniversary celebration Wednesday night.

“We're hoping by the way that in general it'll be more fundraising; maybe not just IPOs. There's a lot of private placements and follow-on offerings. We've said that we hope to target a total of P200 billion worth for this year. Of course most of these will be coming in the second half (of this year). If the pace is very active then I think we'll be able to meet that (P200 billion fund-raising forecast). There's a lot of optimism right now,” he said.

Investor concerns about the May presidential elections and volatile global markets prompted some companies to hold off their IPO plans earlier this year. But with the May 9 polls over, and with global markets stabilizing after Brexit and signals from the Fed that it won’t raise rates anytime soon helped calm investor nerves.

Sicat is also upbeat about the local stock market after the PSE index reached 8,000 levels for the first time this year on Wednesday. Volume of transactions has also picked up, he said.

“It’s always hard to predict (where the PSEi will settle). For us, probably the bigger news is volumes are back,” said Sicat. “We're just essentially where we were before the market volatility started and it means that there's more activity and interest in the market from both local and foreign investors.”

The local bourse ended flat yesterday at 7,944.02, after hitting an intra-day high of 8,005.73 in the early morning trade. Some analysts are predicting the index may end the year at 8,200.

- Interaksyon