SEC: PSE still non-compliant with single industry ownership

The unified PSE trading floor in BGC

After a P2.9-billion stock rights offering that diluted brokers’ ownership in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), the local bourse is still non-compliant with the 20-percent limit on single industry ownership, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Friday.

The excess brokers’ ownership amounts to 2.05 percent, which the PSE has proposed to address by excluding dormant brokers from the computation, but the SEC said these brokers must first amend their charter to exclude brokering for this to be acceptable.

The statement was issued by the SEC to explain the penalty of P106,000 slapped on the PSE “for violation of the disclosure rules.”

The SEC explained that the PSE’s earlier statement that the stock rights offering would make it compliant with the 20-percent single industry limit was “inaccurate and misleading.”

It was noted that “even after full implementation of the same (stock rights offering), the brokers shareholding will be 22.05 percent, still exceeding the 20 percent industry limit by 2.05 percent.

On Feb.28, the SEC ordered a halt on the trading of PSE’s shares and ordered the bourse to make a “prompt, full, fair and accurate” disclosure.

To date, the SEC said its markets and securities regulation department had already directed the inactive brokers to amend their articles of incorporation to exclude brokering as part of their activities and change their corporate name accordingly. But until such time that said amendment has been completed or approved by the SEC, the SEC said the PSE must still include them in the computation of brokers-shareholdings in PSE to be reflected in the PSE’s monthly report.