PSALM Retail Bonds cited as Top Traded Corporate Bond Issue of 2011

19 Apr 2012

For the second straight year, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM) Corporation was conferred the Top Traded Corporate Bond Issue of the Year award by the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. & Subsidiaries (PDS Group) for the successful issuance of its PhP30-billion Fixed Rate Retail Bonds.

The Fixed Rate Retail Bonds, also known as PSALM Retail Bonds, issued on 22 April 2010 as part of the Corporation's Liability Management Program-Phase II comprised PhP11.32-billion 5-year bonds due in 2015 and PhP18.68-billion 7-year bonds due in 2017. The PSALM Retail Bonds sought to address the Corporation's exposure to liquidity risk in line with the bunching up of its maturities in 2010.

The PDS Group based the award on the market performance of the Fixed Rate Retail Bonds due in 2017 amounting to PhP18.67 billion that became the largest and most actively traded issue in terms of trading volume and turnover ratio in 2011. The PSALM Retail Bonds cornered 29.87%, or PhP3,326.20 million, of the PhP11,134-million total volume of corporate securities traded in the Fixed Income Exchange (FIE) Market from January to December 2011.

"On behalf of PSALM and the government, we are privileged to have contributed significantly to the growth and robustness of the Philippine capital markets. We again thank the PDS Group for this recognition," said PSALM President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel R. Ledesma, Jr., who personally received the award during the 2012 PDS Annual Awards Night held on 10 April 2012 at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

PSALM, the first government-owned and -controlled corporation to be listed in the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corporation, received the first Top Traded Corporate Bond Issue of the Year award from the PDS Group on 23 February 2011 for the trading performance of the PSALM Retail Bonds in the FIE Market from April to December 2010 as it snared a 43% share of the volume of traded corporate securities during the period.

The FIE Market, which is managed by the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corporation, is the country's first centralized and comprehensive electronic financial market infrastructure launched in March 2005 for the trading of fixed-income securities, including the secondary trading of government securities. It aims to provide an electronic platform for trading, clearing and settlement, and depository and custodianship of fixed-income securities and its derivatives.

The 2012 PDS Annual Awards Night is the seventh annual affair held by the PDS Group - consisting of the PDEx, the Phil. Depository & Trust Corp., and the Philippine Securities Settlement Corp. - which recognizes the exemplary contributions of top financial institutions in the continued development and growth of the domestic capital market.

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