BIZ BUZZ: No word from GCash … yet
Popular e-wallet GCash has been setting the stage for its stock market debut for quite some time already.
Just a quick recap: Last year, people were already buzzing when GCash doubled its valuation to $5 billion thanks to fresh funding from Ayala Corp. and Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).
The P23-billion deal to increase the shareholding of the Ayala Group’s AC Ventures Holdings Inc. in GCash to 13 percent was closed just this February. MUFG likewise got its 8-percent stake.
In between all of that, there was the issue of easing the 20-percent minimum public ownership requirement for companies that wish to list on the local bourse.
Philippine Stock Exchange president Ramon Monzon confirmed to reporters in March that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had already approved its proposal to lower this to 15 percent.
This, of course, did not come out of nowhere. Monzon himself said GCash had expressed concerns over having to sell 20 percent of its shares to the public, saying it may be “too big for the market to absorb.”
Later, the SEC issued a statement saying it was “firm” in implementing the 20-percent public float requirement, although certain exemptions were allowed, especially for initial public offerings (IPOs) exceeding P5 billion in value. In this case, GCash is qualified to file for exemptive relief, especially since its IPO is pegged at as high as P95 billion.
But the question now is whether GCash has actually filed for an IPO, one that is already seen as the largest in Philippine corporate history.
SEC Commissioner McJill Bryant Fernandez shed some light for reporters last week: “We have yet to receive any [application].”
This is not without merit: GCash itself has said that it may have some trouble making its public debut because of all the tariff drama abroad.
Still, Fernandez said they were hoping to see this much-awaited (and delayed) IPO by the “middle of the year.”
We hope so, too. With the stage and everything else already set, the only thing missing here is GCash.
