Equity deals among companies listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) summed up to P95.22 billion in 2019, less than half the amount of fresh capital raised the previous year, as foreign funds flowed out due to a mix of global headwinds and domestic woes.
The PSE was originally targeting to see about P200 billion worth of capital-raising activities in the stock market this year, compared to P187.84 billion last year.
The equity deals were in the form of initial public offerings (IPOs), private placements, follow-on offerings and stock rights offerings.
“The capital raising number this year was affected by issuers’ opting to tap the bond market or postponing their fund raising plans. Also, two banks accounted for 60 percent of the capital raised in 2018 and we did not have similar big deals this year. We hope next year’s capital raising pipeline will be more robust,” PSE president Ramon Monzon said in his year-end market comment.
Four companies joined the PSE’s roster in 2019, namely: leading coconut product exporter Axelum Resources, home improvement retailer All Home Corp., leading multibrand kiosk operator Fruitas Holdings, and Kepwealth Property Philippines.
Electronics manufacturer Cal-Comp Technology (Philippines) wanted to revive its IPO plan but this was again deferred due to unfavorable market conditions.
The market registered P14.5 billion worth of net foreign selling versus the P61.01 billion net foreign selling in 2018, the PSE reported.
On Friday, the last trading day of the year, the local stock barometer PSE index closed lower by 27.02 points or 0.3 percent at 7,815.26 points. For the full year, the main index gained by a modest 4.7 percent.