Department of Information and Communications [DICT] [link] incoming secretary, Ivan Uy, said that the three existing telco firms should “expect” to face additional competition from even more telco firms. As per Mr. Uy’s carefully measured words: “I think we can do maybe four or five more.” This is a huge shift from DICT gatekeeping telco status to promote DITO CME [DITO 4.55 2.71%]; while this doesn’t seem like an anti-DITO stance, it could certainly feel that way considering the previous DICT secretary’s habit of carrying DITO’s water in policy and the media.
Raslag [ASLAG 2.00 pre-IPO] [link] releases PSE EASy “direct-to-broker” refund list of 54 brokerages that will be able to process, digitally, any refunds needed for PSE EASy users that will not receive a full allocation. Based on the oversubscription of the broker-tranche of shares, coupled with this release, I think it’s safe to say that ASLAG will hit the market on Monday next week with that coveted “oversubscribed” status.
Medilines Distributors [MEDIC 0.68 1.49%] [link] will have more than 48% of its shares, belonging to Virgilio Villar and his wife, come out of mandatory lockup on Monday. While we can’t get in their heads to know what they will do, the original IPO was very heavy with secondary shares, so I’m not comfortable just assuming that nothing will happen. I’ll be watching the daily volume totals to see if there is any additional selling pressure.
PSE [PSE 195.00 2.50%] [link] said that there are still three firms that could be suspended for failure to submit their quarterly earnings: Vantage [V 0.70] still owes a Q1 report, as does Century Peak Holdings [CPM 2.78], and Manila Jockey Club [MJC 1.79 12.25%]. The PSE said that these three companies will be suspended on the morning of June 3rd if quarterly reports are not received by then.
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