Major shareholders of GCash operator Mynt Inc. will retain their stakes after its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) next Tuesday, 20 October, signaling continued confidence in the company’s growth prospects, executives said.
“[N]one of our shareholders are exiting Mynt,” said Evelyn Ng, chief financial officer of Mynt, at an investors’ briefing last week.
“So our strategic shareholders, that includes Globe, Ayala, Ant [Group], and MUFG [Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group], they continue to remain very invested and really strongly believe in the company's growth potential.”
Mynt’s long-awaited IPO is scheduled for next Tuesday, with shares priced at P6.60 each. Ng added that the company’s private equity investors, who are providing the majority of the secondary shares offered in the IPO, are also not fully exiting.
“[I]n fact, they're only selling slightly over half of their stake, and they will continue to remain shareholder[s] of the company after the IPO,” she said.
At the final offer price, Mynt’s base offer of 8.027 billion common shares would be worth about P52.98 billion. The IPO could raise as much as P60.93 billion if the overallotment option covering up to 1.204 billion secondary shares is fully exercised.
Ng said the issuance of mostly secondary shares is intended to provide fresh capital for Mynt’s growth while also creating an investment opportunity for GCash customers.
“In fact, on the primary component, while it's a smaller part of the total deal, the size of the primary component of GCash IPO is actually bigger than some of the previous IPOs that have happened in the country.”
The IPO was initially priced at P10 per share, which Ng said was standard practice among local IPOs during the cornerstone or book-building process.
“Usually, the final IPO price is multiple percent[age points] lower than the up to offer price that's filed in the initial prospectus. And so the process is, after you do that initial filing, that's when we can actually start talking to interested potential investors to arrive at what the final price will be for the IPO.”
Mynt president and CEO Martha Sazon said that while she could not provide specific figures, the IPO was “super oversubscribed,” underscoring strong investor demand.
“We’re a homegrown Philippine company, run by Filipinos for Filipinos, and we’re very proud of that. We truly believe that we need to help the Philippines and support the Philippine market. So, hopefully, this gesture will help not only the Philippine capital market but also the economy as a whole,” she said.
Stay informed
Get Daily Tribune in your inbox
Breaking news, opinion, and business coverage for readers in the Philippines and abroad.
Subscribe to the newsletterPrefer chat alerts? Join the Daily Tribune Viber community.