What It Means
- PSE (Philippine Stock Exchange) delistings have removed roughly ₱580 billion from the local exchange since 2023, against only ₱306.9 billion raised through new IPOs in the same stretch.
- Robinsons Retail and MerryMart are both exiting the bourse in mid-2026, continuing a run that already claimed Metro Pacific Investments, Eagle Cement, Keppel Philippines, and 8990 Holdings.
- The PSE’s proposed answer to rising PSE delistings is a rule cutting the minimum public offer size for preferred shares from ₱1 billion to ₱100 million, aimed at small and medium enterprises.
- The new instrument is non-voting, carries no public float requirement, and needs only 100 shareholders to qualify, a materially different product from the common equity actually leaving the market.
- Minority shareholders in companies that delist are bought out before any share price recovery, while retail investors are steered toward a smaller, thinner substitute.
PSE delistings have pulled roughly ₱580 billion out of the Philippine Stock Exchange since 2023, and the exchange’s newest reform is not built to reverse that. Robinsons Retail is leaving the PSE on July 28, 2026. MerryMart is folding into the DoubleDragon Group after its own board approval. Both moves extend a pattern PSE president Ramon Monzon still calls a normal part of market evolution.
The Math Behind PSE Delistings
Between 2023 and early 2026, eight major companies delisted from the PSE, citing undervaluation and thin trading liquidity. Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Eagle Cement Corp., Premium Leisure Corp., SFA Semicon, Keppel Philippines Holdings, and 8990 Holdings all exited during that stretch, removing more than ₱580 billion in combined value. New listings over the same period added only about ₱306.9 billion through eight IPOs, including Maynilad Water Services and a handful of smaller renewable energy names. For every peso that came in through a new listing, almost two pesos left through the door, and that ratio is the real story behind the recent wave of PSE delistings.
Monzon frames the picture differently. He points out the Philippines had only one delisting so far this year against 11 for Singapore and two for Thailand, and argues the exchange is not doing as badly as the headlines suggest. He said he gets bothered when the media treats every exit as a reflection on the PSE itself. That comparison measures count, not value. Losing one Asian Terminals, priced at ₱68.6 billion, does more damage to the exchange’s total capitalization than eleven smaller Singapore exits combined, and framing PSE delistings by headcount alone hides where the real capital went.
Majority Owners Capture the Upside on Every Exit
Delisting is usually framed as a company simply choosing to leave. The mechanism underneath is a majority shareholder buying out minority investors while the stock still trades below what the owner believes it is worth. Robinsons Retail’s tender offer implies a market capitalization near ₱76 billion. MerryMart’s exit folds the company directly into the DoubleDragon Group, controlled by Edgar Sia and Tony Tan Caktiong.
Minority shareholders who held these stocks through the weak years, thin liquidity, compressed valuations, uneven earnings, are the ones bought out just as conditions stabilize enough for a buyer to see value worth capturing privately. The re-rating that would have rewarded them never happens in public. It happens after the tender offer closes, inside a company that no longer answers to public shareholders. This is the part of PSE delistings that rarely makes the headline: the exit price is set by the party with the most information about what the company is actually worth.
The SME Reform Targets a Different Class of Issuer
The PSE’s proposed fix for the exchange’s shrinkage is a rule change covering preferred shares, not the common equity that is actually leaving through PSE delistings. Under a consultation paper filed in April 2026, the exchange wants to cut the minimum public offer size for preferred shares to ₱100 million from ₱1 billion, framed explicitly as a way to widen access for small and medium enterprises. The minimum number of required shareholders would fall from 1,000 to 100.
This sits inside a broader shift already visible elsewhere. SEC Memorandum Circular No. 11 series of 2026 lowered the general minimum public float requirement, and the PSE can now endorse a float as low as 12 percent for large issuers, the same mechanism that shaped the terms of the GCash IPO earlier this year. The SME preferred share proposal applies that same instinct, lowering thresholds rather than raising demand, at the opposite end of the market from where PSE delistings are actually happening.
A Non-Voting Instrument Is Not a Substitute for What Left
The product being offered to SMEs is not equivalent to what blue chips are leaving behind through PSE delistings. Preferred shares under this proposal are non-voting. There is no minimum public ownership requirement once listed. A company can qualify with just 100 shareholders, and issuers are not required to run a prior IPO before offering preferred shares directly to the public.
That structure genuinely lowers the barrier for a company that could never clear the old ₱1 billion floor. It does not give retail buyers the same protections, price discovery, or exit liquidity that come with common shares on the main board. An SME preferred share offering marketed as democratized access still leaves the buyer without a vote and without the public float depth that makes an instrument easy to exit when conditions turn.
The Reform Is Sized for the Wrong Problem
Scale is the part the framing leaves out. If ₱580 billion has left the exchange since 2023 through eight delistings, offsetting that at a ₱100 million floor would require roughly 5,800 separate offerings clearing the new SME rule. Even a fraction of that pace is unrealistic given how thin the SME listing pipeline has been under the old rules. The reform widens a door that very few companies will walk through in numbers large enough to matter against the scale of ongoing PSE delistings.
Regulators are treating the exchange’s shrinkage as an access problem when the immediate driver is a valuation and ownership problem at the top of the market. Cheaper entry for small preferred share issuers changes nothing for a majority owner deciding whether a public listing is still worth the compliance cost once a private buyout looks more attractive than staying answerable to public shareholders.
Minority investors bought out through today’s PSE delistings will not see their money return to the exchange through tomorrow’s SME preferred shares. It moves into a smaller, non-voting instrument built for a different class of company, while the capital and the control both stay with whoever already held them.
FAQ
Is the trend of PSE delistings unique to the Philippines?
No. PSE delistings this year are fewer in number than in Singapore or Thailand, though the value lost per exit tends to be far larger relative to the market’s total size.
What happens to shareholders when a company delists?
Minority shareholders receive a tender offer price set by the majority owner, typically before the stock has had a chance to recover from depressed valuations.
Does the SME reform replace the capital lost to PSE delistings?
Not at current scale. The ₱100 million offer floor targets a different class of issuer and would need thousands of offerings to match the value already removed from the exchange.
Are the new SME preferred shares the same as common stock?
No. They are non-voting, carry no public float requirement once listed, and can qualify with as few as 100 shareholders.
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