Share price of Wilcon Depot Inc. rose 5.5 percent on its debut at the Philippine Stock Exchange as the company expects to post double-digit growth in sales and net income this year.
Wilcon, the first initial public offering this year and the biggest purely domestic maiden share sale, opened at P5.30 and hit a high of P5.37 before closing at P5.33.
Wilcon chairman William Belo said in a press briefing following the listing ceremony the company was focused on expanding its presence in the country, especially in Visayas and Mindanao.
Twenty of the 29 stores set to open over the next five years will be situated in Visayas and Mindanao
“Over the past few years the Philippine economy has been growing in a fast pace. So we feel that now is the time to grow further and the only way to fast-track our opening of branches is to go public so we can put in more branches to capitalize on the booming economy,” Belo said.
“We see this trend continuing because we have good economic fundamentals,” he added.
Meanwhile, First Metro Investments Corp executive vice president Justino Ocampo said Wilcon IPO was 3.7 times oversubscribed on strong take-up from retail and institutional investors.
“We are very happy with the market reception as retail investors are banking on the strong Wilcon story being a market leader in a strong sector,” Ocampo said.
BDO Capital and Investments Corp. senior vice president Gabriel Lim said the strong take-up for the Wilcon IPO should encourage other companies to consider a purely domestic IPO.
“This is the largest of all domestic IPO ever in the capital market. This is litmus on the increasing depth of the capital markets. It should open the doors for other issuers to brave an all domestic offering,” Lim added.
First Metro and BDO Capital are the underwriters of the Wilcon IPO.
Other IPOs in the pipeline are the P1.58-billion share sale of Pure Energy Holdings Inc. and the P1.24-billion public offering of Bermaz Auto Philippines Inc.