FILRT’s free float won’t drop below the minimum as a result of the share swap

Yesterday, I said that (“according to my calculations”) the property-for-share swap between Filinvest REIT [FILRT 3.04 ?3.2%; 161% avgVol] and its sponsor, Filinvest Land [FLI 0.73 unch; 4% avgVol], would cause FILRT’s free float to fall below the 33.33% minimum public ownership threshold for REITs, and that FLI would need to sell some FILRT shares or FILRT would need to conduct some share sale ahead of the SEC’s approval of the transaction to prevent a suspension. Several well-informed readers wrote in to advise me that my calculations were not correct. Through conversation, I realized that my calculations were based on the PSE disclosure website’s “Free Float Level(%)” stat, which put FILRT’s current free float level at 34.48%. The problem is that the website is out of date. According to FILRT’s Public Ownership Report, released two weeks ago on January 16, FILRT’s free float level (referred to as “Public Ownership Percentage” in this report) is actually 46.68%. Upon further review, I discovered that the PSE website’s “Free Float Level(%)” stat has not been updated since October 15, 2024, despite FILRT having completed a material transaction that impacted the company’s free float (FLI’s tender offer) and FILRT’s subsequent Public Ownership Report published two weeks ago. Using the correct figure, FILRT’s public ownership percentage will not fall below the 33.33% minimum as a result of the injection.

MB BOTTOM-LINE:  A sincere thank you to every person who wrote in and helped me get to the bottom of this. My goal isn’t to be right, it’s to be correct, and if I have a chance to pass along something I’ve learned (like crucial information on the PSE’s website being months out of date), I’m going to take the opportunity to do so if it helps someone else avoid making the same mistake in the future. What if somebody was making investment decisions based on the PSE website’s data? Thanks to this correction, that person would know not to trust the published data when making decisions that rely on that data--at least not without first cross-checking with the latest Public Ownership Report and whatever might have happened in the interim. I recently had a reader notice how the PSE is marketing EQUIP (the PSE’s EQUities Information Platform), which is a subscription-based application “developed by The Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. for access to comprehensive and reliable information on the Philippine stock market.” The reader asked if I’ve ever reviewed the site, which I did back when EQUIP was free and in open beta. You can read my review here. I don’t know if anything has changed since the service was pay-walled, but my bet is that EQUIP and EDGE take the same information from the PSE’s database, so if you’re a subscriber, just watch out. If you're the PSE and would like me to take another look at EQUIP, just let me know! Anyway, thanks to all the readers who helped with this correction! 

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