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Richmond Mercurio - The Philippine Star
February 10, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Conglomerate Ayala Corp. intends to hold on to its entire stake in GCash should the e-wallet giant’s initial public offering (IPO) pushes through.
“I don’t see us selling down, to be honest,” Ayala president and CEO Cezar Consing said in a recent interview.
Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), the parent company of GCash, is a joint venture among Ayala, Globe Telecom and Alibaba affiliate Ant Group.
The GCash public listing is among the most highly anticipated IPOs in the market.
Consing, however, said that the potential listing “has a long way to go.”
“Well it’s still early days. Hard to say. We have to watch the markets,” he said.
GCash is the largest finance app in the Philippines offering a suite of financial services, ranging from cash transfer and bills payment, to credit access and stocks investment.
“One of the few companies that has been talked about going public is GCash and we really we wish them well, that this is something that would actually be launched this year. It would be a fairly sizable IPO from our understanding,” Investment & Capital Corp. of the Philippines senior managing director Manny Ocampo said.
Ayala, through wholly owned subsidiary AC Ventures Holding Corp. (ACV), signed in August last year a definitive agreement to acquire common shares from existing shareholders equivalent to an additional of about eight percent ownership stake in Mynt for approximately P22.9 billion.
The transaction increased Ayala’s ownership in Mynt to about 13 percent.
In October last year, Ayala agreed to effectively sell 50 percent of ACV to Mitsubishi Corp. for a minimum of P18.4 billion.
In 2024, Mynt likewise bolstered the e-wallet’s valuation by picking up a new financier in Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the largest banking network in Japan.
The entry of fresh investments raised GCash’s worth to $5 billion, more than double its previous valuation of $2 billion.
Bloomberg has earlier reported that GCash may be eyeing to generate proceeds of as much as $1.5 billion in its IPO.
GCash president and CEO Martha Sazon, in an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum 2025, said the company is still cautious about going public as it continues to wait for the perfect timing to file its IPO.
