GCash parent Mynt rises in market debut after S-E Asia’s top 2026 IPO

[MANILA] Mynt, the parent company of digital payments leader GCash, opened at 6.63 Philippine pesos on Tuesday (Oct 20), up 0.5 per cent from its 6.60-peso initial public offering price, after raising 60.9 billion pesos (US$965.9 million) in the Philippines’ largest IPO. 

The stock traded at 6.74 pesos as at 10 am, up 2.1 per cent from the offer price. It had traded between 6.60 and 6.75 pesos, with turnover of 220,653,800 shares worth 1.5 billion pesos.

The early gain came as the broader Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index fell 0.2 per cent, making Mynt’s debut a test of whether a new-economy heavyweight can draw investor interest to a market long dominated by banks, property developers and conglomerates.

Mynt sold eight billion shares at 6.60 pesos apiece in a base deal worth about 53 billion pesos; the exercise of the over-allotment option lifted the total to 60.9 billion pesos, surpassing Monde Nissin’s 52.2-billion-peso IPO in 2021.

The offering included both primary and secondary shares. Proceeds from newly issued shares will fund Mynt’s digital financial services growth, product development and general corporate purposes, and the proceeds from secondary shares will go to existing shareholders.

At its offer price, Mynt was valued at about 442 billion pesos, making it the third-largest listed financial company in the Philippines and the seventh-largest listed company overall, Bloomberg data showed.

The listing comes as South-east Asia’s IPO market shows signs of selective recovery: 47 deals raised more than US$3 billion in the first half of 2026, with investors favouring fewer, larger and higher-quality transactions.

A strong first session could signal that the PSE can price and absorb a near-billion-dollar technology listing, encouraging issuers waiting on the sidelines.

A weak one could reinforce concerns that thin liquidity, foreign-capital caution and macroeconomic pressure will continue to force even marquee companies to discount heavily to come to market.

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Foreign investors have sold about US$623 million of Philippine shares so far in 2026, while the country’s weight in MSCI’s global emerging-markets index has shrunk to almost nothing.

The MSCI Philippines Index has just nine members, with one port operator accounting for almost 45 per cent of the benchmark.

Gary Tan, portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments in Singapore, said: “Mynt would broaden the Philippine market, particularly given the shortage of genuine growth stocks.”

GCash is one of the Philippines’ most widely used financial platforms, serving 41.5 million monthly active users – nearly 56 per cent of the country’s adult population – in the three months ended Jun 30.

Users completed payment transactions worth 9.8 trillion pesos in the first half of 2026.

At 6.60 pesos, Mynt trades at about 25.6 times its 2025 net income of 17.3 billion pesos and about 5.5 times its 79.7 billion pesos in 2025 adjusted revenue.

The valuation leaves the company little room for execution missteps as it expands lending, where credit-loss provisions reached 12.6 billion pesos in 2025, or 44.3 per cent of lending revenue.

Momentum has also moderated more recently. Mynt reported a net income of 10.8 billion pesos for the six months ended Jun 30, up 7.3 per cent year on year, while revenue rose 10.4 per cent to 43.3 billion pesos.

Institutional demand provides an early cushion.

More than 20 cornerstone investors – including BlackRock, Citadel, Fidelity International and the International Finance Corporation – committed about 36.5 billion pesos, or nearly 60 per cent of the base deal, before the public offer opened.

Carlos Ma G Mendoza, senior country officer at JP Morgan Chase Philippines, said: “This is a significant milestone for the Philippines.

“It demonstrates that a high-quality Philippine digital business can attract strong global and domestic investor support while expanding investment opportunities in the country.”