PLDT (TEL), the country’s largest telco, got hammered as investors junked the stock after management revealed a P48 billion overrun in capital expenditures.
TEL lost 19.35 percent to P1,192 on Monday, December 19, the first chance investors could get out of the stock after management disclosed the capex bombshell (which happened under the noses of its management from 2019 to 2022) nearly an hour after the closing bell on Friday, December 16.
This is TEL’s biggest single-day loss since January 1990 as it lost over over P60 billion in market value.
A total of P1.48 billion in TEL shares changed hands with net foreign investor selling of P696.15 billion.
Three brokers accounted for nearly half of the total turnover – CLSA Philippines sold 310 million shares at an average of P1,258; BPI SEcurities sold 139 million shares at an average of P1,209; and Macquarie sold 119 million shares at an average of P1,279.
Bilyonaryo reported on Saturday that management has suspended chief financial officer Annabelle Chua and chief procurement officer Mary Rose R. Dela Paz amid the ongoing probe on the budget blackeye.
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