GCash IPO Secures Cornerstone Commitments from Global Funds, Tests Sluggish Philippine Market

MANILA (The Wiregazette) — The initial public offering of Mynt, operator of digital wallet GCash, has drawn commitments from more than 20 global and domestic cornerstone investors, signaling institutional confidence at a time when the Philippine stock market is struggling for momentum.

Among the international asset managers that have taken cornerstone positions are BlackRock, Capital Group, Fidelity, HSBC Global Asset Management, Lazard, Ninety One, Schroders, T. Rowe Price and the International Finance Corp., according to a commentary by fund manager Eric Jurado published in The Philippine STAR. Leading Philippine institutions have also participated.

“It is that global institutions are putting their own investors’ capital behind a Philippine company at a moment when they could deploy that capital almost anywhere in the world,” Jurado said. Some investors are doing so in the Philippines for the first time, he noted.

The commitments are expected to cover approximately the entire institutional offer tranche, subject to possible reallocation among IPO tranches, according to a Philstar report.

The Philippine Stock Exchange has approved the listing of up to 8.03 billion common shares, with an overallotment option of up to 1.20 billion additional secondary shares. The offer period is scheduled for Oct. 6 to 12, with the final offer price to be determined on Oct. 1 and the tentative listing date set for Oct. 20.

Analysts expect the price to be at least 6.60 pesos per share or below, the same opinion column reported. RCBC executive Lito Villanueva argued the significance lies beyond pricing. “This was never really about price. It’s about who gets to own a piece of what tens of millions of Filipinos already use every day,” he said.

Retail investors will be able to subscribe through the GStocks feature inside the GCash app, as well as through the PSE EASy platform, the exchange said. That accessibility could lower barriers for ordinary Filipinos unfamiliar with brokerage accounts, the report noted.

Interest is also emerging among overseas Filipino workers, according to a Philstar report. While no data on OFW subscriptions is yet available, the IPO is being discussed in overseas Filipino investment-oriented communities. Gulf News, which serves a substantial Filipino readership in the Middle East, has published guidance on how Filipinos abroad may participate, the report stated.

The development is significant because GCash already serves Filipinos overseas through GCash Overseas, which allows registration with international mobile numbers. About 94 million registered accounts and over 40.4 million monthly active users make GCash the dominant e-wallet in the Philippines, according to the opinion column citing industry sources. It has six million merchant accounts, the highest among Philippine e-wallets.

Mynt, which holds double-unicorn status with a valuation exceeding $2 billion, reported audited revenue of 79.7 billion pesos ($1.4 billion) for 2025, the column noted. That exceeds revenues of regional peers such as South Korea’s Kakao Pay ($670 million) and Indonesia’s GoPay ($325 million). Morgan Stanley estimates Mynt will generate 21.2 billion pesos in net income in 2026, with a net margin of 22.6% and return on equity of roughly 28%, according to the same column.

Jurado noted that Albizia Capital, Amundsen Investment Management and HSBC Global Asset Management are making their first cornerstone investment in the Philippines, while Ninety One North America and Ninety One UK are participating as cornerstone investors in Southeast Asia for the first time.

“The GCash IPO is doing something we badly need – attracting investors,” Jurado said. “An IPO can raise billions of pesos. But sometimes, the more valuable asset it attracts is something money cannot easily buy: the confidence of sophisticated long-term investors.”

The IPO arrives as the Philippine economy grows at a sluggish pace and the stock market has fallen into a deep slumber, the opinion column observed. Whether the GCash listing can revive broader market appetite remains uncertain, but the combination of cornerstone commitments and emerging retail and OFW interest provides the strongest test yet of whether a major Philippine fintech can draw capital both locally and globally.