The planned acquisition of a majority interest in fixed income operator Philippine Dealing System & Holdings Corp. by the Philippine Stock Exchange remains uncertain.
PSE president Hans Sicat said the bourse was trying to determine the existence of a commercial deal between PSE and PDS shareholders after the deadline for the transaction to be completed already expired in November.
The PSE though is still addressing the additional information being requested by the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its request to seek exemptive relief from the 20 percent limit of ownership in the unified exchange.
“What people should need to evaluate is whether a commercial deal will be forthcoming or feasible. What we had was a commercial deal that expired on November 27 and we have not announced anything on that yet,” Sicat said.
“This means that even as we can submit as many things as SEC wants, to them it is still a theoretical exercise, but we at the PSE probably need some time to determine if there is still a commercial deal to speak of,” he added.
PDS shareholders that have signed share purchase agreement with PSE last year were Bankers Association of the Philippines, Finex Research and Development Foundation, Whistler Technology Services Inc. and Insular Investment Corp.
Several PDS shareholders, however, have expressed interest in selling their shares to the PSE, namely Singapore Stock Exchange, Golden Astra, Tata Consultancy Serves Asia, Computershare Technology Services, The Philippine America Life and General Insurance Co., Social Security System and Investment House Association of the Philippines.
The SEC earlier gave PSE until January 26 to submit additional information regarding its planned acquisition of PDS, especially on dealing with the the market and investors that would benefit from the deal.
The PDS is the holding company that owns Philippine Dealing Exchange Corp., the operator of the fixed-income exchange. It also owns Philippine Depository and Trust Corp., which serves as the depository for equities and fixed-income securities.
The PSE said the transaction aimed to facilitate further growth in the local capital markets by introducing efficiencies in the trading and back office systems of both the equities and fixed income markets.