THE Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has 335 listed stocks as of Jan. 27, 2021. Which among them are publicly traded? Which among these listed stocks are majority owned by the very rich families in the Philippines and are not traded at all?

The questions beg for answers because being listed means listed stocks are traded by the public. Are they? If the public investors are wondering, Due Diligencer has the answers.

The Sy family, for example, controls SM Investments Corp., which is PSE-listed. Under “company description,” SM “has equity investments in other sectors such as premium commercial buildings, food and mining.”

As one of 335 publicly traded stocks, SM is only one of these publicly-traded stocks controlled by the Philippines’ rich families. The others include the Zobels, who are the majority stockholders of Ayala Corp. and a number of its subsidiaries; the Gokongweis, owners of JG Summit Holdings Inc., which own JG Summit Petrochemical Corp., CP Air Holdings Inc., Universal Robina Corp., Robinsons Land Corp. and Robinsons Bank Corp.

JG Summit also holds 8 percent interest in PLDT Inc., 29.6 percent in Manila Electric Co. and 30 percent interest in Global Business Power Corp., according to PSE.

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Listed stocks are traded by the public. For instance, SM Prime Holdings Inc. (SMPH), which the Sys also own, listed in its public ownership report (POR) were 33,166,300,075 issued common shares of which 4,287,068,381 were treasury common shares, leaving it with 28,879,231,694 outstanding common shares. These treasury common shares represent 12.926 percent of 33,166,300,075 issued SMPH common shares and 14.845 percent of 28,879.231,694 outstanding common shares. The difference between the two percentages would be 1.919 percent, which, when translated into number of SMPH common shares equals 3,047,982,976.8925 common shares and 2,654,001,392.6786 SMPH common shares of 28,879,231,694 outstanding common shares.

How many of the outstanding are traded daily by insiders? A computation of 30 SMPH trades shows a daily average of 9,963,083.333 SMPH common shares based on 30 trades – except Saturdays and Sundays.

Insiders include the owners as Hyper Dynamic Corp. bought JFC common shares to beef up its holdings as a JFC affiliate. (JFC stands for Jollibee Foods Corp.)

Hyper Dynamic was one of JFC’s principal stockholders, which, according to the company’s POR, directly and indirectly held 276,397,420 common shares. If insiders were responsible in buying more common shares, as Hyper Dynamic did in the case of JFC, will SMPH insiders do the same?

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These are listed stocks, which differ from companies that issued them. Of 335 listed stocks, 94 of them are listed more than four times, suggesting than more than double listings, which could mean the issuance of preferred shares by the issuer companies. Do they?

The 94 issuer companies meant their issuances of preferred shares, which, strictly speaking, represent the borrowings of these entities, which the public stockholders may or may not hate at all. Borrowings are the responsibilities of executives, who may not consent to treating them as borrowings when they make their entries in their companies’ financial filings whether these are audited

or not. What is more important to the public is the report, particularly if said filings contain what to them are declarable dividends.

The issuance of preferred shares is risky to the public investors, particularly the stockholders among them. If preferred shares are borrowings but they form part of the companies’ outstanding capital stock.

This is not fair to the public investors who trade on them.

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The public investors make these companies with listed stocks public. Without them, there would be no publicly traded stocks; without them, there would be no stock market. It is the public that makes the stock market.

Will there be companies that would sell their initial public offerings (IPOs) of common shares if the public investors were not there to buy them?

This is the reality of going public.

A number of PORs even make their public stockholders the majority stockholders of certain companies with publicly traded stocks. This is an irony when the boards belong to the very rich families, whose control makes them the kings and, at the same time, the majority owners.

Will these public stockholders end up controlling the boards? Just asking.