Brokers’ PSE stake exceeds 20% anew
Credit to Author: ANGELICA BALLESTEROS, TMT| Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 16:18:29 +0000
Broker ownership of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has again breached the 20-percent limit, the bourse said on Monday.
In a disclosure, the PSE said trading participants accounted for a 26.44-percent stake as of last month, equivalent to 85 million shares. It previously announced in January that this had been lowered below 20 percent.
The bourse said the finding followed mandatory submissions of sworn shareholding certifications.
These showed that approximately 7.26 percent of the PSE’s outstanding shares — inclusive of 3.38 percent purchased during a follow-on offering last year — was held by brokers’ principal shareholders and related parties in omnibus client accounts, which were not included in brokers’ propriety accounts and thus not registered in broker ownership reports.
“The Exchange is putting together a compliance plan to further bring down broker ownership to the level required by law,” the PSE said.
“In the meantime, brokers are being prohibited from buying PSE shares for their proprietary account, the account of their related parties, and the principal account of other broker dealers, pursuant to the SEC Rules Governing Trading of PSE Shares,” it added.
The PSE announced in January that it was adopting measures to maintain broker ownership at not more than 20 percent. This included real-time monitoring via the trading system and the amendment of rules governing trading rights and brokerage firms.
Trading participants were also required to update the customer account information forms of clients and submit monthly certifications of brokers’ related person accounts with corresponding PSE shareholdings.
The bourse said its trading system was configured to automatically prevent purchases of PSE shares if the 20-percent limit would be breached.
As prescribed by Securities and Exchange Commission rules governing trading of PSE shares, accounts to be monitored include those held by brokers’ subsidiaries and affiliates, directors, officers, principal stockholders, nominees to the PSE and spouses and relatives up to the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity.
The PSE also proposed penalties such as P100,000 for the first offense, P200,000 for the second offense and P300,000 for the third offense on top of the suspension of trading operations for five days.
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