PSE income rises 8% in Q1

MANILA, Philippines - Net income of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) rose eight percent to P199.4 million in the first quarter 2014 from P184.8 million in the same period 2013.

Operating revenues for the three-month period jumped 22.8 percent to P323.4 million from P263.4 million last year.

Half of the operating revenue came from listing-related income that surged 145.7 percent to P168.15 million.

“Trading activity has been fairly stable in the past quarter and we hope it will pick up in the coming months given the continued interest we are getting as a market. We think listings will remain to be active as well in 2014,” PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat said.

Top Frontier Investment Hold- ings Inc., the majority share- holder of diversified conglomer- ate San Miguel Corp., listed by way of introduction in January. DoubleDragon Properties Corp. and Century Pacific Food Inc., the Philippines’ largest canned goods producer, conducted an initial public offering in April and May, respectively.

PSE said several companies also completed stock rights offerings and private placements.

Year-to-date, capital raised in the equities market hit P74.7 billion, with the PSE targeting to surpass the P175 billion recorded in 2013.

“Despite lower trading activity in the market during the first quarter of the year compared to last year, trading-related revenues still went up by 6.1 percent to P3.89 million due to higher market data revenues and other subscription fees,” PSE said.

Trading volume sank 26.68 percent to P457.08 billion from P623.38 billion in the first quarter, or an average daily value turn- over of P7.37 billion from P10.22 billion, PSE data showed.

Year-to-date, net foreign buy- ing has more than doubled to P41 billion from P15.6 billion in end-2013.

“The increase in trading-related income was brought about by 26.15-percent higher data feed connections of P2.9 million attributed to increase in data subscribers,” PSE said.

It was also buoyed by an 86.75-percent spike in subscription fees due to online trading platform PSETradex and security token paid by listed companies for the new disclosure system PSE EDGE.

To date, there are four trading participants using the PSETradex platform while 10 brokerage firms are on beta-testing, PSE said.

Compared with operating revenues, expenses rose at a slower pace of 7.3 percent to P115.88 mil- lion from P107.97 million given prudent spending measures.

“The Exchange continues to be guided by its three-year strategic plan.

We hope to introduce more products and have a brisk takeup for the products and services we offered last year like the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), PSETradex, Shariah list and PSE EDGE,” Sicat said.

First Metro Philippine Eq- uity Exchange Traded Fund Inc., which tracks the benchmark PSE index (PSEi), was the first ETF to list in the local bourse in December.

The PSE also released the initial list of Shariah-compliant stocks last year. The operator of the local bourse formally launched the mobile application of its disclosure system in March.

Since closing 2013 at 5,889.83, the benchmark PSEi rose nearly a tenth or 538.88 points to 6,428.71 as of end-March. The bellwether index reached a 12-month high of 6,880.44 on May 14.