KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 29): Home-grown mobile services enabler Sedania Innovator Berhad (Sedania) has inked an underwriting agreement with Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd.
Sedania, which is slated to list by the middle of this year, signed the agreement with Kenanga IB which is its principal adviser, sponsor, underwriter and placement agent for its IPO exercise.
In a statement today, the company said it was eyeing to accelerate its growth pace with the upcoming IPO.
Sedania has cemented its presence in the local technology-oriented circle since 2014 after it partnered a mobile network operator (MNO) to provide ancillary mobile services to its subscribers, principally Airtime Sharing (ATS) solutions.
ATS allows mobile subscribers to request and transfer airtime credits to other prepaid mobile subscribers within the same network.
Sedania is the brainchild of Datuk Noor Azrin Mohd Noor.
Sedania Innovator’s platform is made available to subscribers of Celcom Axiata Berhad and Maxis Berhad in Malaysia, as well as Robi Axiata Limited in Bangladesh.
The ATS services provided through the platform include “Celcom Airtime Transfer”, “Celcom Airtime Request” and “Maxis 2 Transfer” in Malaysia, and “Quickshare” in Bangladesh.
Noor Azrin, who is also the managing director of Sedania, said the company’s proprietary developed ATS platform had proven to be highly robust and scalable, facilitating up to 400,000 transactions daily at its peak.
He said this had allowed Sedania Innovator to expand internationally, adding that one of the key factors of the company’s success was its commitment to continuously innovate and commercialise innovations.
“We intend to hone our competitive edge even further.
“In fact, we hope to raise funds from our IPO for research and development (R&D) and to enhance our ATS platform, and also target to expand our R&D team to 40-strong from 18 persons in end-2014. We are confident that this would propel our next growth trajectory.”
Sedania’s IPO entails the public issue of 51.5 million new ordinary shares, of which 41.5 million shares will be allocated for private placement to selected investors; 1.0 million shares for eligible directors and employees of the Group; and 9.0 million shares for application by way of balloting to the Malaysian public.
Sedania’s wholly-owned subsidiary IDOTTV Sdn Bhd (IDOTTV) is the owner of the company’s in-house developed mobile technology platform.
Noor Azrin said that Sedania had recently launched three new ATS-related services in the first quarter of 2015 alone.
“Our partner MNOs had built a critical mass of mobile subscribers who are already familiar with the concept of ATS, hence it was timely to bring the mobile subscribers to the next level and incorporate it even deeper into their lifestyles,” he said.
For the financial years ending Dec 31, 2011 to Dec 31, 2013, Sedania posted a net profit compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 61.1% per annum to RM6.9 million from RM2.7 million in FY2011.
Revenue CAGR stood at 6.6% per year over the same period to reach RM9.9 million in FY2013, from RM8.7 million in FY2011.