Bankard complies with 10% public ownership requirement to stay listed on PSE

MANILA, Philippines—The Yuchengco-led credit card servicing firm Bankard Inc. has complied with the 10-percent minimum public ownership requirement to remain listed on the local stock market through the re-issuance of treasury shares.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, Bankard said its public float has increased to 10 percent from 8.3 percent prior to the re-issuance of treasury shares.

On Nov. 29, Bankard brought back about 26.58 million of its treasury shares to the open market, thus raising its public float to meet the PSE requirement.

The credit card firm now has about 1.53 billion in outstanding shares.

The PSE had given all publicly listed companies a grace period that lapsed last Nov. 30 to meet the 10 percent minimum public ownership requirement. Delinquent companies will otherwise pay monetary fines and within the next 30 months, face trading suspension and eventual delisting.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue is also keen on imposing the 5-10 percent capital gains tax on shares trading of companies falling below the minimum public float requirement.

Bankard shares closed at P0.85 per share on Thursday, 1.16 percent lower than the previous session. It had a market capitalization of around P1.3 billion.

Initially named Philippine Commercial Credit Card, Bankard was organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of PCIBank in 1981. It was set up for the purpose of operating a domestic credit card business and its full commercial operations commenced in June 1982.

In 2007, Bankard changed the nature of its business from a full credit card business of issuing cards and acquiring merchants, to that of credit card servicing. It signed a services agreement with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. in 2001. As a servicing entity, Bankard provides RCBC marketing, selling and distribution assistance, technical, collection services and all transaction processing requirements arising from its credit cardholder and merchant transactions.