Following Gokongwei, Ty Family Unloads $172 Million Worth of GTCAP shares!

Wow, billionaires look as if they are showing the way.

From the Inquirer:

THE TY family placed out $172 million worth of shares in conglomerate GT Capital Holdings, boosting stock market liquidity.

The shares were sold by the Tys’ Grand Titan Capital Holdings to institutional investors at P1,539 per share in an oversubscribed deal arranged by investment bank UBS.

The mere act of selling of the shares of the Ty's flagship firm signifies a revelation of their subjective choice. Such choice reflects on their priorities, preferences and values.

This apodictically means that the Ty family prioritizes cash rather than their shares.

What becomes subject to interpretation are the possible WHYS of the sale?

Was the sale merely a windfall which the family will spend for personal use? If so why such a huge amount? Wouldn't it be better to sell when in need, especially if share prices will continue to skyrocket?

And wouldn’t it be an irony considering the astounding 66% surge in eps growth by the GTCAP in the 1H of 2016, then why sell at all?

Or could it be perhaps that such magnificent eps growth had been more about accounting gymnastics, or income statement inflation mostly due to recent acquisitions, the Property of Friends, and MPIC, as with recent merger, Toyota Marina Bay and Toyota Cubao? And could it be that the said sale merely reflected on the what they might have thought as excessive valuations?

As with the $250 million JGS sales by the Gokongwei’s, it is very unlikely for any magnate/tycoon to admit that their shares are overvalued for the reasons that I have previously cited: for prestige, for collateral values (for loan purposes), for moneyness of their shares (for deals) and or for political capital purposes (for political deals).

With an estimated $4.6 billion in wealth, the patriarch George Ty has been ranked 421 in the world and fourth in the Philippines according to the Forbes.

So the sale would constitute around 3.7% of the Ty’s wealth.

 

Or could the Ty’s have been signaling ‘disciplinary actions’ to the speculative community that they will be sellers if prices continue to soar vertically.

Or could it have been that the Ty family sees developing uncertainty in the incumbent political economic climate for them to raise not only cash, but cash in USD holdings? Buyer/s must have either been foreigner/s or overseas based entity/entities as indicated by the PSE quote today. GTCAP stumbled by 4.07% today.

Yet has the proceeds of the sale been kept abroad? 

After all, the current administration has opened a new war front against ambiguously defined ‘oligarchs’.

Or could they have begun stashing cash as insurance against perceived risks?

Yes world billionaires have reportedly been hoarding cash.

From the CNBC:

The world's billionaires are holding more than $1.7 trillion in cash — the highest amount since one firm began recording the measure in 2010.

Because of what they perceive to be growing risks in the economy and world, the world's 2,473 billionaires are keeping 22.2 percent of their total net worth in cash, according to the Wealth-X Billionaire Census.

If this trend percolates here, then the Ty's and the Gokongwei's could be future sellers.

Whatever the reason/s, one thing has been clear, like the Gokongweis, the Ty’s has signaled preference for cash with the latest sale. 

And perhaps they could be sellers anew if share prices continue to behave irrationally.

History is in the making.