PNB Holdings to list on Philippine exchange at $985M valuation — with no IPO
What's the deal? PNB Holdings Corporation (PHC)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → will begin trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → on September 25 without an initial public offering, new shares, or fresh capital. It is listing by way of introduction, which brings existing shares onto the exchange so they can be traded. The company will list 46.9321 billion shares at P1.20 each, implying a market capitalisation of P56.32 billion.
How it works: An ordinary IPO makes a company public and raises capital at once; a listing by way of introduction separates the two. The shares already exist and are held by shareholders, so a seller pockets the buyer's money while PHC gets nothing. The shares reached investors after Philippine National Bank (PNB)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → declared 51% of PHC as a property dividend to its shareholders.
Why it still matters: Listing creates a visible market price, gives shareholders a route to liquidity, and subjects management to the PSE's disclosure, reporting, governance, and public-float rules. It also hands the company a traded equity currency for future acquisitions or capital raising.
The float question: When PHC filed its February prospectus, public ownership stood at about 9.86%. Affiliates of LT Group Inc. (LTG) — the holding company founded by billionaire Lucio Tan, with PNB as its main banking subsidiary — planned a secondary private placement to lift the float. Effective August 11, the PSE cut the maintaining public-float requirement to 15% for companies above P50 billion in market value, and applied it to introduction listings. At P56.32 billion, PHC clears that cutoff, though the PSE has not said how the new rule applies to its already approved application.
What is it worth? PHC's June accounts carry investment properties at P46.54 billion, but an accredited valuer puts their fair value at P85.89 billion. Accounting firm Punongbayan & Araullo valued the shares between P1.18 and P1.89; PHC settled on P1.20.
The signal: Replacing the carrying value with the appraised value lifts adjusted equity to roughly P89.1 billion, or about P1.90 a share — near the top of the fairness range. That gap suggests the listing price leaves room, but taxes, liquidity, redevelopment costs, execution risk, and holding-company discounts all weigh on any real valuation.
Read more: newswav.com
Image credit: Jun Acullador
