Cosco Capital Inc. of businessman Lucio Co is preparing for a big real estate investment trust offering, which could raise between P15 billion and P30 billion, according to Philippine Stock Exchange president and chief executive Ramon Monzon.
Monzon said in an interview at the sidelines of a forum sponsored by the Securities and Exchange Commission over the weekend that Cosco is ready to file its REIT offering application either this month or next month.
“They (Cosco) are suppose to file their application this month or next month. They are just finalizing the list of underwriters,” Monzon said.
An official from Cosco confirmed that the company is studying a possible REIT offering. However, the planned offering may not be finalized this year.
“We are studying a REIT offering but I don’t think it will be finalized in 2023. We are still studying proposals from investment bankers,” the source said.
Monzon also reported that SM Prime Holdings Inc.’s planned huge REIT offering, which was initially scheduled this third quarter, would be pushed back to next year.
Meanwhile, Monzon remains confident of hitting the P160 billion total capital raising target for 2023 despite the dearth of share sales in the second half of the year due to volatile market conditions.
“People are saying that our market is bad but if you look at it in the context of the Asean region, as of yesterday only Vietnam and Philippines are positive all the others are down,” Monzon said.
Monzon also said the low trading volume happening in the local equities market is also happening in other regional markets.
“As of June 30, we are down 4.8 percent from average of last year versus average of first six months of this year. Again, if you look at it at the context of the region, Vietnam is down 31 percent trading volume,” Monzon said.
Two firms are slated to conduct equity offering For the second half of the year, namely ACEN Corp., which is looking to raise P25 billion from issuance of preferred shares and Repower Development Corp., which is planning to raise P1.15 billion from initial public offering.