Trading of DITO CME Holdings Corp. was suspended yesterday pending a “comprehensive disclosure” on its decision to suspend its P8 billion stock rights offer.
Stocks trading opened the week on a positive note, ending up as investors cheered the government’s downgrade of COVID-19 alert level in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in a note to investors Monday said the trading halt on DITO shares “is strictly in view of the materiality of the information and for dissemination purposes only.”
This follows after the PSE said it is looking at a possible penalty for the company following the suspension of the share sale.
The third telco opted to defer the issuance of the rights shares citing that “current market conditions are less than ideal to pursue the offering.” It also said that alternative financing is already being facilitated to cover for the funding needs that the stock rights offer was supposed to fill.
Market participants are keenly observing how the PSE will handle DITO’s case, which is unprecedented in the stock market’s history.
“We trust that our regulators will handle this development with the protection of those investors in mind, especially since there is a large number of minority shareholders that participated in the offering,” said Dino Bate, president at online stockbroker Colfinancial.com.
The PSE index closed Monday up 44.04 points to 7,2961.01, a 0.61 percent hike.
The broader all shares index was up 25.27 points to 3,881.35, a 0.65 percent hike.
Gainers edged losers 123 to 77 with 40 stocks unchanged. Trading turnover reached P7.42 billion.
The peso closed at 50.95 to the dollar, down from Friday’s P51.23. It opened at 51.20, hitting a high of 50.93 and a low of 51.23. Trading turnover reached $980.79 million.
SB Equities Inc. said the market’s rally Monday was in the backdrop of “market optimism regarding the NCR’s de-escalation towards a less stringent Alert Level 2 spanning February 1-15.”
It also helped that the US market closed last week’s session up, it said.
“Expectations of a potential further moderation in consumer price inflation in January also contributed to positive market sentiment,” SB Equities also said.
Most actively traded BDO Unibank Inc. was up P1 to P135. Globe Telecom Inc. was down P130 to P3,110. Ayala Land Inc. was up P1.70 to P35.90. Aboitiz Power Corp. was up P1.50 to P35.30. Monde Nissin Corp. was up P0.12 to P16.38. Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. was up P1.35 to P58.90. SM Prime Holdings Inc. was up P0.90 to P35.10. International Container Terminal Services Inc. was up P2.50 to P200. Security Bank Corp. was up P1.90 to P107.20. SM Investments Corp. was up P10 to P949.
