The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Public-Private Partnership Center (PPPC) has welcomed the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the supplemental listing and disclosure rules for private partners of PPP infrastructure projects. The pronouncement of the SEC allows companies engaged in PPP projects to tap the capital market in order to address the challenge of having alternative financing options for PPP investments.
As provided by the SEC rules on PPP listings, project contracts worth at least P5 billion are now eligible to be listed at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and access the equity and bond markets. PPP companies or its special purpose company can now list at the PSE as soon as it has completed its construction work or a phase of the PPP project or after it has started its commercial operations.
The PPP Center said it believes that this is a positive development for the PPP program as its moves into more complex and bigger PPP projects that will require substantial funding. Allowing these companies to tap into the capital market for their PPP projects definitely opens other viable financing options that investors can adopt, the Center said. The result is a more dynamic and sustainable PPP program that can help push the accelerated infrastructure agenda of this government, it added.
Prior to the approval for PPP listings, the PPP Center, together with the PSE, SEC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), worked to come up with solutions on how investments in PPPs can hurdle the imminent dearth of financing options particularly for billion-dollar PPP projects.
These consultation meetings culminated in a PPP Forum conducted by the PPP Center to seek the opinion and recommendations of global financing experts and PPP stakeholders on ways to tap the capital market for PPPs.