Mynt president and CEO Martha Sazon became a billionaire on paper when the parent company of GCash began trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange, Rappler reports. At the offer price of P6.60 per share, her 220.1 million shares carried a value of P1.45 billion. The listing, which Rappler describes as the largest initial public offering in Philippine history, puts a public price on a stake she held while the company was still privately owned.
Sazon marked the occasion on the PSE trading floor, gathered with her senior leadership team and photographed with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before ringing the bell. According to Rappler, she also put roughly 44 million of her shares up for sale, a move that could bring her about P290.55 million before taxes and fees, while retaining 176.1 million shares valued at P1.16 billion.
Why it matters
The IPO gives Sazon, who took over Mynt in 2020, a measurable share of the wealth created by GCash's growth from a Globe Telecom service into a fintech unicorn. It also converts part of her long-held equity into tradeable stock, the kind of liquidity event that Rappler notes has similarly benefited GCash's early private equity backers.
Her personal windfall is tied to a company whose reach now extends across a large share of Filipino adults. Rappler reports that GCash counted 41.5 million monthly active users as of June 2026.
The listing also matters for the Philippine market. Rappler describes it as the biggest IPO the country's exchange has seen, and the first week of trading drew close attention to how the stock would hold up.
A career that moved from banking to marketing to fintech
Sazon's path to the top of Mynt was not a straight line. A University of the Philippines accountancy graduate, she began in banking, then chose to move into sales and marketing even though it meant earning less, according to Rappler. She recalled waking early to learn from merchandisers and store staff, and in a 2023 graduation address at the UP Virata School of Business she said there is no shame in starting at the bottom.
She later worked at Del Monte and GlaxoSmithKline across food, pharmaceuticals and personal care, then spent 12 years at Globe, where she managed postpaid, small-business and broadband operations. In 2020, then-Globe chief Ernest Cu asked her to lead Mynt.
Rappler notes that finance and technology were not her specialties, and that she took the job during lockdowns, when she could not meet much of her team face to face. The timing, however, worked in GCash's favor: with the pandemic limiting physical transactions, Filipinos needed ways to pay bills, transfer money and shop without cash.
Sazon has described the company's culture as an obsession with solving customer problems and with setting higher targets, a description Rappler says may ring true for anyone who has found GCash's workplace demands intense. The user growth, Rappler notes, is difficult to argue with.
Her profile has risen alongside the company. Rappler reports she was named to Forbes' 2026 50 Over 50 Global list and placed 35th on Fortune's Asia's 100 Most Powerful Women, two places higher than in 2025 and the best ranking among Filipinas on that list.
Lending is the next target
Sazon has said the public listing is a starting point rather than an endpoint. Mynt's goal, according to Rappler, is to build its lending business until it contributes as much revenue as payments. In the first half of 2026, payments accounted for 57% of revenue and lending 43%.
To close that gap, Mynt is directing 60% of its net fresh IPO proceeds—close to P10 billion—toward growing its loan book over the coming years, Rappler reports. Executives outlined the plan at a post-listing briefing with reporters, though Sazon herself was absent from that session; Rappler says Bloomberg interviewed her immediately after the ceremony.
In comments to Bloomberg TV, Sazon called the early share gains encouraging and said she hoped the company could sustain them and possibly see further improvement during the day. GCash shares were trading about 1.5% above the offer price at that point, according to Rappler.
A debut that lost its early shine
The stock's first sessions were uneven. Rappler reports that after touching P6.76, the shares closed their debut at P6.60—exactly the offer price—then slipped to P6.27 by the end of the first week of trading.
UBS, the investment bank acting as stabilizing agent for the IPO, has a P7.95-billion fund it can use to buy shares and soften any drop below P6.60 through mid-November, Rappler reports. Even so, Rappler notes, such support has limits against broader market pressure.
That leaves Sazon's newly public fortune exposed to the same daily price swings as any other shareholder's. Her stake was valuable before the listing, but only now does it carry a figure the market recalculates each trading day.
Investors will be watching whether UBS's stabilization fund can hold the stock near its offer price through mid-November, and whether Mynt's lending push begins to shift the revenue mix away from payments.
