THE PHILIPPINE Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) has increased its stake in Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. (PDS) to 92.06% after acquiring additional shares from a selling shareholder.
A member bank of the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) signed an accession agreement on May 30 to sell its 28,790 PDS shares, equivalent to a 0.46% stake, to the PSE, the stock market operator said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
With this agreement, the PSE’s ownership in PDS rose to 92.06%, including its existing 91.6% stake.
PDS owns fixed-income exchange operator Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. as well as the Philippine Depository and Trust Corp.
Prior to this deal, the PSE closed transactions with Singapore Exchange Ltd., Whistler Technologies, Inc., San Miguel Corp., Golden Astra Capital, Inc., Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines Research and Development Foundation, Investment House Association of the Philippines, and AIA Philippines Life and General Insurance Co. Inc.
The market operator also completed transactions with the Social Security System, Insular Investment Corp., Citicorp Capital Philippines, Inc., Tata Consultancy Services Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Mizuho Bank, Ltd., and MUFG Bank, Ltd., as well as BAP and some of its member banks.
The PSE reached a P2.32-billion agreement in December last year to acquire a 61.92% stake in PDS, involving 3.87 million shares at P600 per share.
According to the market operator, the move will enable more efficient integrated market surveillance and monitoring for both equities and fixed-income markets.
It will also provide a single domestic venue for listing and capital raising, allowing easier access to both equities and debt markets.
“From a corporate standpoint, maintaining the business operations of both the PSE and PDS while reducing operational costs through synergies can result in greater business scalability and profitability,” the PSE said.
“As the two companies have highly similar and integrated functions, there should be synergies that could be realized from an infrastructure standpoint, particularly on the technology side,” it added.
PSE shares closed unchanged at P183 per share on Monday. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
