Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore-based Kronologi Asia Bhd aims to  be listed on Bursa Malaysia’s ACE Market by year-end, said executive chairman and group chief executive officer Piti Pramotedham.

Pramotedham said the company chose Malaysia for its listing as he felt the capital market structure held more opportunities for Kronologi Asia’s future growth.

“We were awarded MSC status here in May by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDec). Having that MSC status provides leverage in terms of being able to gain knowledge workers,” he said in an interview with The Edge Financial Daily recently.

Kronologi Asia, established in 2002, provides electronic data management services (EDM) to enterprises, be it large corporations and multinationals or small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Its EDM services are split into two areas: infrastructure technology and managed services. Managed services involve managing the backup, storage, recovery and restoration of enterprise data on a subscription model.

Infrastructure technology, on the other hand, refers to the provision of physical hardware, software and/or equipment components of EDM.

Some of its clients include Public Bank Bhd, Bank of Singapore, StarHub Ltd and PTT Pcl. Kronologi Asia is also the strategic marketing partner of US-based Quantum Corp Ltd in the Southeast Asian region.

The company’s initial public offering will entail an issuance of 59.24 million new shares. Of that, 4.74 million shares will be made available to the public, 7.1 million shares will go to eligible directors and employees, and the remaining 47.4 million shares will be placed out to identified investors.

Pramotedham was not able to disclose the issue price of the shares or the amount of proceeds that will be raised. But according to the company’s draft prospectus, the bulk of the amount to be raised will be utilised for expansion.

Kronologi Asia already has a presence in the Southeast Asian region and hopes to expand into markets such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Myanmar by offering its infrastructure technology services.

“For this [infrastructure technology] business we want to expand into countries where we have no presence at all currently, and these are the countries we believe will present us with a reasonable growth opportunity,” he said.

“The roll-out of managed services is really the big push. We believe that is the area that will give us a higher than market growth rate. This will start in Singapore, with wave one covering Malaysia and wave two covering Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines,” he added.

According to an independent market report done by Smith Zander International Sdn Bhd, the EDM industry in Southeast Asia has shown a healthy compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.1% over the last five years, growing from US$577.9 million  in 2009 to US$759.6 million  in 2013. The industry is expected to continue to grow at a CAGR of 7.3% from 2014 to 2016.

On diversification outside the EDM sector, Pramotedham said it was not likely, as he preferred the company to focus on its current strengths.

“We would like to move into areas where we have leverage and expertise. Organically, we will continue to develop related services to EDM, so similar services such as archival would be possible,” he said.

 

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 24, 2014.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share