PSE profit jumps 27.6% with PDS

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. (PSE) saw its net income jump by 27.6 percent in the first semester to reach P508.03 million. This was thanks to higher revenues attributed to its takeover of the country’s bond trading platform.

In a statement on Thursday, the operator of the local bourse said its revenues went up by 81.7 percent to P1.31 billion. This, as trading-related gains more than doubled.

This was on the back of transaction fees from Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDS). The PSE recently took over PDS in a deal with its shareholders.

READ: PSE gains from PDS takeover

PDS generated P137.45 billion from 10 corporate debt issuances, according to the PSE.

Listing-related fees also climbed by 12.6 percent due to higher listing maintenance fees.

The PSE saw one initial public offering, two follow-on offerings and six private placements in the January to June period. These facilitated P62.61 billion in capital raising efforts.

At the same time, a 69.8-percent surge in total costs and expenses which reached P706.77 million, and a 49.4-percent dive in other income prevented a higher profit gain.

“While PDS has become one of our main revenue sources, we also expect to realize cost efficiencies once we have fully integrated PDS into PSE,” said Ramon Monzon, PSE president and CEO.

As of the end of the first semester, PSE’s ownership in PDS stood at 92.06 percent from 20.98 percent pretransaction.

It has since been gradually buying more shares from other stockholders to eventually reach a full takeover.