GCash owner Mynt has taken the first formal step toward a landmark stock market debut, filing for an initial public offering that will test investor appetite for the Philippines’ biggest fintech success story.
The company said its board and shareholders had approved the filing of a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a listing application with the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Management’s view
“Mynt has evolved from an e-wallet operator into the Philippines’ number one finance superapp and largest cashless ecosystem,” president and CEO Martha Sazon said in a statement.
“The authorization of our board and shareholders allows us to work toward a potential public listing as the next step in Mynt’s growth journey, while continuing to focus on the priorities that have brought us to this point: serving customers, supporting merchants, strengthening our platform offering, and building the business for the long term,” she added.
IPO process kicks off
The move formally launches what could become the largest PSE listing following a report by the Wall Street Journal the offering could raise about $1 billion.
Mynt disclosed that the offering will be equivalent to 12 percent of its outstanding shares after the IPO, with the sale consisting of both primary and secondary shares.
The company is backed by a roster of heavyweight investors led by Globe Telecom and China’s Ant Group, which each own about a third of the company, alongside Japan’s MUFG Bank, Ayala Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp.
PSE’s ‘SpaceX moment’
“The most anticipated Philippine IPO has finally launched,” Juan Paolo Colet, managing director at China Bank Capital, told InsiderPH.
“This is our market’s SpaceX moment. We expect this deal to smash local equity fundraising records, and it will bring a good measure of excitement to the PSE,” he added.
Colet was comparing the GCash to the blockbuster market debut of American tycoon Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, whose record-breaking listing became the largest IPO in history.
Juan Paolo Colet
China Bank Capital managing director
IPO window
Mynt has long been viewed as IPO-ready, but trade tensions, elevated interest rates and geopolitical conflicts repeatedly shut the window for large listings. Its latest push comes as markets stabilize following a preliminary US-Iran agreement that eased fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
GCash traces its roots to a text-based money transfer service launched in 2004, but its growth accelerated after Ant Group entered in 2017 and growth further exploded during the pandemic as millions of Filipinos shifted to digital payments.
It now serves 94 million users and has expanded far beyond money transfers and bill payments into lending, savings, investments and insurance products.
