CORPORATE issuers continued to tap the equity and bond markets at end-July this year, taking advantage of low interest rates and overflowing liquidity, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.
Data from the central bank showed that for the period January to July, capital raising activities in the Philippine Stock Exchange reached P68 billion, up 54.5 percent from the P44 billion in the same period last year.

Corporate bond issuances also increased by 22.4 percent to P142 billion from P116 billion last year.
Data from the Philippine Dealing System showed that state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management led the corporate trading market hitting P252.7-million worth of papers in July, albeit lower than last June’s P529.8 million.

Demand for Ayala Corp.’s debt papers remained strong with P105-million worth of notes traded, followed by San Miguel Corp. and Aboitiz Power Corp., which traded P99.5 million and P68.9 million, respectively.

The surge in corporate issuances came amid the expansion of domestic liquidity and bank lending during the period.

Money supply or M3 grew by 8.3 percent in July from 11.4 percent the previous month.
The steady expansion was attributed to the 17.5-percent growth in net foreign assets of financial firms.

Net domestic assets contracted by 6.3 percent in July because of the faster expansion in the net other items account, which includes revaluation and capital and reserve accounts as well as placements of trust entities in the special deposit accounts.

Bank lending growth, net of banks’ reverse repurchase placements with the BSP, accelerated in July to 19.1 percent from the previous month’s 18.8 percent.

The increase was the highest growth recorded since April 2009, the central bank noted.

The PSEi, however, has been dropping on mounting evidence of a slowdown in global growth amid the eurozone’s ongoing debt troubles and the pick-up in China’s inflation.