PSE to open in Cebu in September

Sunday, July 31, 2011

TO INCREASE regional participation in the country’s stock market, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) will expand to Cebu this September.

Kathleen Therese Buenaobra of PSE’s Market Education Department said in an interview on Friday that PSE will open a marketing office here to encourage more Cebuano investors to participate in the country’s trading market.

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Buenaobra said there is a need for PSE to strengthen its visibility outside the capital, particularly in Cebu because of its booming industries.

The marketing office will be located at the Insular Cebu Business Center in the Cebu Business Park.

Althought it will not be a trading facility, the office will house brokers who will guide potential investors about the stock market, Buenaobra said.

She said they will double efforts in increasing awareness about the country’s stock market by tapping local investors. The office in Cebu will conduct investor profiling, investor campaign and education.

She said the the Cebu office will be more “retail-investor-friendly” and potential clients can talk with brokers to walk them through the trading process.

Buenaobra said that there are only 600,000 investor accounts, which is only 0.05 percent of the country’s 90 million population.

“We really hope to get people to go to the office and make them participate in the stock market,” she said.

PSE has 249 listed companies. Among the top Cebuano companies listed in the country’s stock exchange are Aboitiz Power, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Cebu Holdings Inc. and Cebu Property Ventures Development Corp.

To attract potential foreign investors, PSE recently announced the extension of trading hours starting October. The move is meant to increase trading volumes and match the hours of other Southeast Asian exchanges it will be linked to next year.

On Oct. 1, trading will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. instead of the current schedule of 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon. On Jan. 1, 2012, trading will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon and then from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The stock market posted a banner year last year, with the key index surging 37.6 percent. The total value turnover for 2010 reached P1.21 trillion, 29.8 percent higher than the P930.4 billion registered in 2009. The combined market capitalization of listed issues in the PSE rose by 47.1 percent to P8.87 trillion compared with P6.03 trillion in 2009.

Total capital raised in 2010 reached P84.9 billion, largely from the initial public offerings of Cebu Air Inc., Nickel Asia and IP Converge Data Center Inc., and the stock rights offerings of First Gen Corp., SM Development Corp. and Bank of the Philippine Islands. 

PSE said the figure was an improvement over the P38.8 billion raised in 2009.