Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corporation Sanctioned by the Philippine Stock Exchange

On January 15, 2021, the Philippine Stock Exchange meted out penalties to Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corporation for, among other violations, inaccurate or non-disclosure of the changes in the ownership of its director and principal officers.

Bilyonaryo.com.ph, an online business news outlet, gave some details on the violations in a news article posted on January 17, 2021; to wit:

 “PSE caught Cirtek, owned by Taiwanese businessman Jerry Liu, of failing to disclose changes in ownership of its director and principal officers; making inaccurate reports on the shareholdings of its principal officer; and giving misleading information in the quarterly public ownership reports.”

In a letter-reply to the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corporation regarding Bilyonaryo.com.ph’s article, Cirtek said that it had submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) its “written explanations noting that the reason for the inaccuracy was due to miscommunication between the Company’s Compliance Officer and the person designed/tasked to to convey the information to her, as well as the failure of one of its officers to inform the Compliance Officer of such officer’s shareholdings in the Company.”

Cirtek assured the PSE and the public that it was committed to improve its corporate governance practices “to ensure that inaccuracies in its reports are avoided in the future.”

Cirtek’s disclosure lapses bring back the ghost of Calata Corporation. It could be remembered that Calata Corporation was delisted in 2017 and its Chairman and CEO Joseph H. Calata disqualified from being an officer and board member of any publicly listed company. This arose from Calata’s multiple violations of PSE disclosure rules.

It is a bit scary hearing news like this because many Calata investors are still reeling from their losses due to inability to sell their shares after Calata was delisted.

Shares of Cirtek have been falling since the first news broke out on January 15, and even the day before that. It is now trading at P6.73 apiece, 18% down from the January 13 closing of P8.22 per share.

We will see how the market will eventually take the news. Who knows the decline in prices could just be a healthy correction…