This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 14, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Securemetric Bhd, a provider of digital security products and solutions, made an impressive debut on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia yesterday at 45 sen, a 80% premium to its offer price of 25 sen.

Its shares — the fourth top gainer on Bursa — more than doubled to close at 53.5 sen, with 151.45 million units transacted. It was also the most actively traded counter.

This gives the company a market value of RM94 million.

Its chief executive officer (CEO) Edward Law Seeh Key said he was optimistic about seeing further investments and expansion in the local market.

“With our presence now spread across key markets in Southeast Asia, we believe that the listing will serve as a platform for us to further expand our operations locally and regionally,” he told a news conference yesterday.

“Going forward, we will continue to enhance our research and development capabilities and develop new digital security solutions to meet evolving market needs,” he said.

On whether it is easier to penetrate the local market after the political change, Law said the company is neutral on politics like in all of the countries it operates in.

“Whichever political party is in control, it does not affect Securemetric’s business as the company focuses on the market that requires the services it provides,” he said.

Law said Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo had been promoting digital identification which is in line with the country’s vision towards digital economy transformation and this indirectly increases the potential of Securemetric.

On cybersecurity in Malaysia, Law said previously it stopped at the managerial level.

“But today, most of the big organisations, including financial institutions and government agencies, have taken it as one of the important factors and we have already looked at the cybersecurity-related issues at the board level.

“So that actually means the market tends to pay much more attention on digital security and willingly invest more in digital security in Malaysia,” he added.

Securemetric raised RM17 million via the listing exercise. Of the total proceeds, RM5.7 million will be used to develop new digital security solutions, RM5.16 million for working capital and RM1.7 million for business expansion.

The remaining proceeds of RM4.44 million will be used for repayment of borrowings and defrayment of IPO expenses.

Law said the company plans to introduce a cloud-based security service.

“Eventually, this is to expand or enhance some of our existing solutions,” he added.

Securemetric expects to launch the cloud-based system in the first quarter of next year.

Today, the company has presence in Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore.

Law said over the next two years, the company will further strengthen its position in the five countries.

“Only after that, we will be looking at penetrating other markets,” he added.