Increased capital raising in PH seen in 2022

The Philippines is likely to see a robust corporate capital-raising pipeline in the coming years, with initial public offerings (IPOs) that may even eclipse the record-high P48.6-billion stock market debut of Monde Nissin this year, capital market experts from global banking giant Citi said.

“We’re going through an unprecedented rate of creation of corporate activity. There are more new corporates than ever before, and there have been more opportunities for new corporates than ever before. So there is a huge need for financing,” Jan Metzger, managing director and head of Citi Asia-Pacific banking, capital markets and advisory, said in a virtual roundtable with the local media yesterday.

“We are seeing a big demand for equity, mostly on private placements … But there’s a couple of candidates queueing for IPO maybe in 2022, depending on how volatile the market would be because of the elections. But if not in 2022, [it will be] definitely in 2023,” added Fernando Fleury, head of corporate banking at Citi Philippines.

This year, the Philippine Stock Exchange expects capital-raising through its bourse to reach P237.52 billion—a new high for the market. In the first 10 months, fresh capital raised through the bourse hit P197.23 billion, already eclipsing the P103.76-billion capital raised for the whole of last year.

Upbeat markets will encourage a lot of fundraising in 2022, Metzger said.

“One thing which is important to realize is many of the really exciting companies in the Philippines will also be companies that are breaking new ground and doing new kinds of technologies … For that, equity is a very natural instrument and we will see a lot more equities being issued,” he said, noting that Citi was the lead bank for the Monde Nissin IPO last June.

“But I think it (Monde’s IPO) will soon be eclipsed by others. So you’re going to see a lot of equity-raising,” he said. INQ