It has recently come to the attention of the Philippine Stock Exchange that property developer Century Properties Group is enjoying the perks of a publicly listed corporation when only 3.55 billion, or only 37 percent, of its 9.68 billion in outstanding common shares are actually listed.

The PSE’s rule is that all classes of shares of a public company must be applied for listing, although there seems to be some gray area on how soon this should be executed, allowing some companies to take their own sweet time before complying with full listing.

So we asked CPG about this and the company said it was indeed planning to list the rest of its outstanding shares “when practicable.”

The company told Biz Buzz: “The remaining shares are unlisted as CPG has been advised by counsel that while the listing of all shares is required, it is within the company’s discretion as to when to list its unlisted shares.”

As such, CPG—which entered the local bourse through the backdoor listing mode using dormant East Asia Power Resources Corp. as vehicle in 2011—argued that it was not in violation of any PSE law. Neither has it received any written advisory nor been penalized by the PSE for this.

But PSE sources said the local bourse has started scrutinizing all listed companies with incomplete listing of outstanding shares, but several sources noted that CPG’s case stood out in terms of sheer under-listing size as a ratio of total outstanding stocks. While it was true that the PSE has not penalized it, a PSE official said the local bourse would soon issue a “definitive compliance period” to CPG as well as to other similarly situated companies.

“To the extent we’ll allow a company to follow their timelines, we will and that’s why we’re working with them to fix this backlog,” the official said, adding that the PSE’s interest was in line with CPG’s. “It will improve trading liquidity and since they have a good growth story, why not list all other shares already issued?” the official asked, adding that the reluctance to list would only trigger a lot of speculation on the reason for doing so.