Submission Statement: South-east Asia is set to notch up its biggest IPO this year when the owner of the Philippines’ most popular digital payments platform goes public. Mynt, which owns Filipino digital wallet GCash, will raise almost $1bn in the Philippines’ biggest listing, boosting the region’s muted capital markets. Trading is expected to start on Tuesday.
GCash has about 41mn monthly active users, or a third of the country’s population. The platform is used widely to pay bills, transfer funds and pay for purchases from millions of merchants, as well as offering loans.
There were 71 listings in south-east Asia in the first nine months of the year — 11 per cent fewer than the same period last year, according to Deloitte data. The offers raised a total of $3.6bn, down 9 per cent.
However, the region’s IPO market was “showing renewed momentum, although the recovery remains selective”, said Tay Hwee Ling of Deloitte Southeast Asia.
The return of larger and more mature IPO candidates “signals improving confidence among institutional and international investors”, Tay added.
Stronger equity market performance, improving visibility around interest rate rises and regulatory reforms in some markets have supported offerings across the region, according to analysts and bankers.
South-east Asian IPO volumes have been muted compared with markets in China and India, but there are signs that bourses in the region are coming back to life.
Malaysia is the most active south-east Asian market by volume, accounting for about two-thirds of all listings across the region, according to Deloitte.
In Vietnam the government has been pushing to expand the role of capital markets and equity funding as a way to meet ambitious growth targets at a time of rising borrowing costs.
The Vietnamese government wants to double the value of its stock market by 2030, said Thuy Anh Nguyen, a director at Vietnamese fund manager Dragon Capital.
The IPO pipeline remained “strong” for sectors including real estate, healthcare and tech, he said, with momentum set to be maintained next year.
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