Robust P400 billion bond listings seen this year

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. (PDEx) is optimistic this year’s domestic bond listings target will be attained as the corporate bond market is off to a good start.

PDEx president and CEO Antonino Nakpil said the expectation is for a more robust domestic corporate bond market this 2024 compared to last year.

Following Filinvest Development Corp.’s listing of the first tranche of its P32-billion fixed rate bonds last week, Nakpil said the Development Bank of the Philippines is also returning to the PDEx this week.

“A very good start for the first quarter,” Nakpil said.

Nakpil expects the amount of capital raised through corporate bond issuance this year to surpass last year’s P209.33 billion.

He said this year’s target is to nearly double last year’s amount and hit about P400 billion.

“There’s a lot of maturities that are going to occur and the banks in particular usually have an incentive to reissue their bonds again. It’s cheaper in terms of their reserve requirements so that will be driving (the growth). We believe banks are coming back,” Nakpil said.

Aside from banking sector issuances, Nakpil said some of the corporates are also expected to come in this year.

“Just a year previous we hit half a trillion pesos of corporate bond issuances and listings. All of those were oversubscribed. Meaning whatever the issuance that were coming in to ask of the market, the investors had more,” he said.

Domestic corporate bond market issuances last year plummeted by 58.8 percent to P209.33 billion from a record high of P508.66 billion in 2022 due to heightened uncertainties.