CTS Global diversifying into Indonesian stocks

Veteran stockbroker Edward Lee’s CTS Global Equity Group Inc. is betting on Southeast Asia’s largest economy to fuel growth amid challenging market conditions.

In a stock exchange filing on Monday, CTS said it would venture into the Indonesian stock market, citing its massive daily volume versus the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), resilient commodity-driven economy and planned new technology-focused initial public offerings (IPOs).

CTS is an affiliate of online stock brokerage giant COL Financial Group Inc. but with a differentiated strategy focused on propriety trading in the Philippines and select overseas markets.

“Historically, the company has been active in the Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong and the US equity markets. This venture into Indonesia starts CTS’ expansion into more geographical locations,” CTS said in its filing.

Fishing in a bigger pond

The company’s venture in Indonesia was made via an “initial fund disbursement into Bank Central Asia Indonesia.”

“This is one of the strategies for CTS Global to reach its long-term target of getting more revenues from global trading,” it said in the filing.

Indonesia is also home to some of the world’s biggest technology companies. These include GoTo, formed by the merger between ride-sharing giant Gojek and e-commerce company Tokopedia. CTS noted that GoTo marked the fifth-largest IPO in the world when it went public last April.

“This expansion allows CTS Global to benefit from our neighboring country’s growth prospects,” the company said, adding that the Indonesian bourse registers daily average volumes of $1 billion against the PSE’s $150 million.

“The long-term goal for CTS is to derive 75 percent of its revenues from the global markets. We have world-class traders that are more than capable and now that we have capital in our arsenal, it’s time to expand into markets like Indonesia,” said CTS Global CEO Lawrence Lee.

For the first quarter of 2022, 43 percent of proprietary trading revenues came from global markets while the rest came from the Philippines.

CTS raised P1.37 billion to ramp up its global trading business when it went public last April. INQ