The Philippine Stock Exchange is exploring the possibility of selling its 20-percent stake in Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. after signing a non-disclosure agreement with Land Bank of the Philippines.
PSE president and chief executive Ramon Monzon said in an interview at the sidelines of DoubleDragon’s listing ceremony the signing of the NDA did not necessarily imply that it was agreeing to sell the stake in PDS but indicated its willingness to explore and study the offer of LandBank.
He said the PSE would consider the offer price of LandBank for the local bourse’s stake in the country’s fixed income exchange and other benefits as well.
The PSE earlier planned to take over the PDS and even secured share purchase agreements with several PDS shareholders owning a combined 72-percent stake.
The PSE, however, failed to secure a so-called exemptive relief from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 20 percent single-industry ownership limit, until the SPAs expired on March 31. The PSE has not yet reduced brokers’ ownership in the stock exchange to 20 percent—one of conditions set by the regulator.
With the expiration of the SPAs, shareholders of PDS were free to entertain the offer of LandBank.
LandBank last week reported that shareholders owning 43 percent of the fixed-income bourse accepted the bank’s offer to buy their shares at P360 apiece.
Aside from PSE, other big shareholders of PDS are the Singapore Stock Exchange and the Bankers Association of the Philippines.
Meanwhile, several minority shareholders of PDS including San Miguel Corp. said they did not receive an offer sheet from LandBank.
San Miguel owns 250,000 common shares equivalent to four percent of the total issued and outstanding stock of PDS.
Other minority shareholders of PDS are Tata Consultancy Services Asia Pacific Philippines, Philippine America Life and General Insurance Co., Development Bank of the Philippines, Social Security System and Citibank NA.