KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 8): Pertama Digital Bhd's subsidiary Television Airtime Services Sdn Bhd (TAS) has completed the acquisition of a further 24% of the total ordinary shares in govtech software company Dapat Vista (M) Sdn Bhd from HeiTech Padu Bhd.
This followed an announcement in July that TAS had exercised its contractual option to acquire the additional stake on top of the 56% it had already held in Dapat.
In a statement, Pertama Digital said the acquisition was completed today, making TAS an 80% majority shareholder of Dapat. Through Pertama Digital’s 51% equity interest in TAS, Pertama Digital has an effective interest of about 41% in Dapat.
To recap, Pertama Digital acquired a 51% stake in TAS in May 2020
Pertama Digital’s director of strategy Saify Akhtar said Dapat’s businesses are relentlessly growing during the Covid-19 pandemic that encouraged digital touchpoints over physical contact.
"Pertama Digital’s increased majority stake in Dapat enables a consolidation of larger contributions to the bottomline of Pertama Digital," he said.
Meanwhile, Dapat's CEO Amanda Sabri said the company runs eJamin, the world’s first smartphone court bail payment solution that is live in courts all over Malaysia.
"On July 19, 2021, we piloted the eJamin+ feature to raise the bank transfer limit for court bail payment, from RM30,000 to RM500,000 in a single transaction. This feature will be available nationwide soon, increasing the pool of eJamin users.
"On Sept 1, 2021, Dapat revamped mySMS, the online platform that government agencies use to reach out to the rakyat via reliable short messaging service, such as for public hospital appointments, public university admissions and information on zakat. We expect mySMS’ enhanced robustness and agility to drive higher usage," she said.
Recently, Pertama Digital’s consortium applied for a digital banking licence from Bank Negara Malaysia.
Shares in Pertama Digital settled today 1.87% or one sen lower to 52 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM225.51 million.