The Philippine Stock Exchange said Monday it is finalizing the terms for the acquisition of Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp., which operates the bond exchange market.
PSE president Hans Sicat said in a news briefing the company recently completed the conduct of due diligence and was in now in a discussion with the Bankers Association of the Philippines for the final terms of the offer.
Sicat said while both parties earlier agreed to a baseline valuation of P2.25 billion for PDEX, the final terms could still change, depending on the outcome of the due diligence and discussions with BAP.
He said once the discussion with BAP was completed, the PSE over the next two to three weeks would be ready to send the final terms of the offer to all shareholders of PDS.
“We will give them one month to accept [the offer],” Sicat said.
Sicat said the PSE was hopeful it would secure regulatory approval and PSE shareholders approval on the transaction by May.
PSE earlier expressed interest to acquire a majority interest in PDS in line with its plan to merge the equities and fixed-income market exchanges.
PSE already owns a 20.89-percent interest in PDS.
BAP, which owns 28 percent interest in PDS, as well as San Miguel Corp. and Golden Astra Capital have agreed to sell their shareholdings in PDS to PSE.
Other major shareholders of PDS are Singapore Stock Exchange (20 percent), Tata Consultancy Serves Asia (8 percent), Computershare Technology Services (8 percent), The Philippine America Life and General Insurance Co (4 percent), Financial Executive Institute of the Philippines (3.1 percent), Social Security System (1.5 percent) and Investment House Association of the Philippines (1.1 percent).
A merger of the equities and fixed income market exchanges is being pushed to expand the volume of trades and improve the country’s capital markets.