MANILA — More than 20 global and domestic institutional investors have committed to participate in the planned initial public offering (IPO) of Mynt, the parent company of GCash, giving the Philippine stock market one of its most closely watched listings in years.
Mynt said the aggregate commitments from its cornerstone investors would cover approximately the entire institutional tranche of the offering, subject to any reallocation between offer tranches. The group includes some of the world’s largest asset managers and financial institutions alongside major Philippine investment firms.
Among the international investors named are BlackRock, Capital Research and Management Co., FIL Investment Management, HSBC Global Asset Management, International Finance Corp. (IFC), Lazard Asset Management, Ninety One, Schroders, T. Rowe Price, Citadel-linked Surveyor Capital, NS Partners and RWC Asset Management. Domestic participants include ATRAM Trust Corp., BPI Asset Management and Trust Corp., China Bank Capital Corp., Metrobank Trust Banking Group, Philequity Management and RCBC Capital Corp.
The preliminary prospectus showed cornerstone investors have committed about ₱36.5 billion worth of shares. Their commitments represent roughly 68.8% of the shares in the offer before any overallotment shares are taken into account.
The scale of the commitments gives Mynt a substantial base of institutional participation before the IPO reaches the broader investing public. Cornerstone investors typically commit to purchase shares ahead of the public offering, helping establish demand during the bookbuilding process.
The roster also marks new participation in the Philippine capital market. Mynt said Albizia Capital, Amundsen Investment Management and HSBC Global Asset Management are making their first cornerstone investment commitments in the Philippines, while Ninety One’s North American and UK entities are participating as cornerstone investors in Southeast Asia for the first time.
Mynt’s IPO could become the largest share offering in Philippine history if priced at the upper end of its approved range. The Philippine Stock Exchange has approved an offer of up to 8.027 billion firm shares at a maximum price of ₱10 each, consisting of both primary and secondary shares. An additional 1.204 billion secondary shares may be offered through an overallotment option.
At the maximum offer price, the transaction could raise as much as about ₱80.3 billion before the overallotment option, potentially surpassing Monde Nissin Corp.’s roughly ₱55.9-billion IPO in 2021. With the overallotment fully exercised, the transaction could reach about ₱92.3 billion based on the preliminary terms.
The final offer price, however, has not yet been determined. The PSE’s preliminary terms set October 1 as the price-setting date, with the offer period scheduled from October 6 to October 12. Mynt’s shares are tentatively scheduled to begin trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange on October 20 under the ticker GCASH.
The IPO consists of both primary and secondary shares. Proceeds from the primary component are intended to support the expansion of Mynt’s digital financial services, product development and general corporate purposes.
The planned listing comes as GCash has expanded beyond its original mobile-wallet business into lending, savings, investments and other financial services. The company’s growing role in the country’s digital-finance ecosystem has made the IPO a major test of investor appetite for Philippine technology and financial-services companies.
The offering is also arriving during a challenging period for the local equities market. Reuters reported that Philippine companies had raised only about $227.1 million through equity capital-market transactions so far this year, according to LSEG data, underscoring the significance of a potentially multibillion-peso transaction such as Mynt’s.
For Mynt, the strong lineup of cornerstone investors provides an institutional foundation as it prepares for its market debut. For the Philippine capital market, the listing could bring a major, widely recognized consumer-finance company into the public market and place renewed attention on the country’s ability to attract large-scale equity investments.
But investor commitments are not the same as the final IPO outcome. Pricing, allocation, broader public demand and trading after listing will ultimately determine how the market receives Mynt’s debut.
The bigger question now is whether the enormous institutional interest surrounding GCash can translate into sustained demand when Mynt finally opens its shares to the wider Philippine investing public.
