Capital raised at the Philippine Stock Exchange reached a record P67.04 billion in the first quarter, as companies continue to tap the equities market to fund expansion.
“Our first-quarter numbers are off to a good start. They provide strong basis for our target of six to eight IPOs and around P200 billion worth of capital raised this year,” PSE president and chief executive Hans Sicat said.
“We hope that the additional fund raising mechanisms we have worked on in the past months will provide further support to our targets,” Sicat said.
The P67-billion capital primarily came from the P60-billion stock rights offering of BDO Unibank Inc. and the P7-billion initial public offering of Wilcon Depot Inc.
PSE earlier predicted that fund raising activities including IPOs, follow on offerings, stock rights offerings and private placements would reach P200 billion this year.
The previous highest amount of capital raised in the first quarter of any given year amounted to P55.90 billion in 2014.
