PhilWeb shares up 49.88% as PSE lifts trading halt

Shares of embattled online gaming technology firm PhilWeb Corporation surged nearly 50 percent on Thursday after the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) lifted the trading suspension requested by the company on Wednesday.

PhilWeb shares closed at P6.37 apiece, up P2.12 or 49.88 percent from P4.25 on August 9 before the PSE imposed a trading halt.

"It could just be a technical rebound. The market maybe hoping that the government is targeting Ongpin, not the business," Justino B. Calaycay Jr., head of marketing and research at A&A Securities Inc., told GMA News Online.

"With him opting out, it will renegotiate with PAGCOR," Calaycay said, referring to PhilWeb's former chairman Roberto V. Ongpin.

The PSE lifted the trading suspension on PhilWeb at 10:30 a.m., after "careful consideration of information disclosed by the company."

On Wednesday, the firm went for a voluntary trading halt. The suspension was supposed to be lifted on August 24.

In a disclosure on Thursday, the company said Ongpin is selling his entire stake of 771,749,896 shares equivalent to 53.76 percent of the total outstanding shares of PhilWeb.

The disclosure was based on a statement he read before reporters and PhilWeb stakeholders during an emergency meeting late Wednesday.

"I am doing this auction so that I will be totally out of the picture and the innocent bystanders, such as the shareholders, the employees of PhilWeb Corp., the e-Games operators, their collective employees which numbers some 5,000 people, may be able to save their jobs," Ongpin said.

The businessman has been singled out by President Rodrigo Duterte as among the oligarchs embedded in government whom he intends to weed out.

PhilWeb President Dennis Valdes hopes to forge a new contract with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) after its contract with the gaming regulator expired and was not renewed on Wednesday. — Ted Cordero/VDS, GMA News