AUB debuts strong on PSE

The Rebisco group’s banking arm, Asia United Bank, debuted strongly on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday as investors bet on the company’s robust growth prospects.

AUB, which aspires to be among the country’s top 10 banks in terms of resources within the next five years, expects to make a new banking acquisition within the year and grow its loan book by at least 30 percent each year.

The bank’s shares rose by 9.47 percent from its initial public offering (IPO) price of P95 per share to close at P104 per share, even as the local stock barometer slipped by 0.43 percent.

AUB was the most actively traded company in Friday’s session.

The bank sold 80 million shares, raising P7.6 billion from the initial public offering. Including the overallotment option of 8 million shares, which is expected to be exercised given strong demand for the offering, the deal size was expected to increase to P8.36 billion.

Underwriter UBS announced yesterday afternoon a partial exercise of this option to take up additional shares involving an initial volume of 200,000 shares.

The offering was oversubscribed by about five times the base offer, reflective of the bullish stock market.

Of the P7.6 billion IPO, 60 percent was taken up by foreign investors and 40 percent by domestic investors.

The domestic allotment was increased from the original share of 30 percent to cope with demand, said AUB first vice president Andrew Yap.

Local stock brokerage DA Market Securities said AUB’s stock price had room to go up to 2 to 2.2 price-to-book valuation as local banking peers were trading at an average price-to-book of 2.21x.