FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said Monde Nissin’s record-breaking initial public offering (IPO) proves global investors’ high confidence in the post-pandemic recovery of the Philippine economy.
Dominguez on Tuesday said Monde Nissin’s offering attracted global investor demand nearly six times the allotment for the international tranche, adding that this shows the country is “very capable of winning over world-class equity investors in billion-dollar issue sizes.”
Monde Nissin’s IPO of USD1 billion is the largest ever public offering in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and also in Southeast Asia in the food and beverage segment.
“This offering is also a testament to the high confidence of investors in the post-pandemic recovery of the Philippine economy. Monde Nissin’s landmark transaction sends a clear message that our economy will soon regain its momentum and will bounce back stronger than ever,” said Dominguez in his remarks at Monde Nissin’s listing in the Philippine Stock Exchange.
See related story in Companies
The Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee recently slashed its growth projection for the Philippine economy this year to 6 to 7 percent from its previous forecast range of 6.5 to 7.5 percent due to the emergence of new Covid-19 variants and the reimposition of stricter lockdown measures in the National Capital Region Plus during the second quarter of this year.
The Philippine Statistics Authority earlier reported that the country’s GDP contracted 4.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, marking the economy’s fifth consecutive quarter of decline.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua has said the economy needs to grow an average of 10 percent in the next three quarters to achieve the low-end of the government’s target.
Nonetheless, the country’s finance chief said he expects the Philippine company known for its iconic food brands to use its proceeds from its IPO to further expand its business activities and open up more job opportunities for Filipinos.
“Monde Nissin has long been a part of the daily lives of Filipino consumers. Its products are staple items in many of our households. It has become a food giant providing some of the most iconic food brands. More importantly, the company has created thousands of quality jobs for our people,” Dominguez said. “Over the past two decades, the company proved that it can compete with the best of the world’s brands by expanding its business worldwide.”
Even amid the ongoing pandemic, Dominguez said this has been an “exciting time for the Philippine stock market” which has witnessed several other landmark offerings from the retail and telecommunications sectors, and the entry of Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) players.
“I am sure that the Philippine stock market is poised to see more blockbuster offerings as interest in our economy continues to grow,” he said.
These “promising developments” underscore the importance of rapidly developing the Philippines’s capital markets through reforms that would encourage financial deepening and a broad-based and inclusive financial system fit for the 21st century, Dominguez said.
Read full article on BusinessMirror
