Sterling Group mulls PSE listing of 3 tech firms
They cannot find the perfect timing for the listing of its hybrid rice producing firm at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), businessman Henry Lim Bon Liong said it may be easier to go public through his recently acquired technology companies.
It was in 2010 when Lim first announced his intention to go public through his agriculture firm, SL Agritech Corp. (SLAC). But the IPO bid had been stalled for the past ten years already.
SLAC is just part of a bigger conglomerate that is Sterling Paper Group of Companies, one of the oldest conglomerates in the country.
When asked about his plans for SLAC, Lim, who leads both companies, avoided giving exact timelines. Instead, he mentioned the three technology companies that Sterling Group recently acquired.
"I bought some IT [information technology] companies. It will be easier to list it," Lim, Sterling chief executive officer, said in an interview.
It was in mid-2017 when Sterling Group announced that it has diversified into e-commerce business, with the acquisition of online shopping site Galleon.ph and apps development firm Openovate Labs. Just last month, the company also bought Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot startup ChatbotPH.
In a separate interview, Sterling Vice President Michelle Lim Gankee said the company is currently focused on building these companies.
"The latest ventures we acquired are these three tech companies. They’re really the future," LimGankee said.
She said they have already successfully renamed these companies into Sterling Openovate, Sterling Galleon, and Sterling Chatbot.
Lim earlier said the investments on these tech companies would be strategic for his group as he sees the technology sector as pivotal growth area.
“We’re looking at e-commerce as one of driving force in growing the Philippine economy,” Lim said.
Galleon.ph is a local version of Amazon that sells more than 500 million products from anywhere outside of the Philippines, while Openovate is the developer of apps like Jobayan.ph, a jobs exchange site that has 10,000 resumes in its database.
Salaaap is its online product search system.
Chatbot, on the other hand, offers AI-powered virtual assistants that can be beneficial to several sectors, such as businesses in banking and retail industries.
These acquisitions further diversify the company’s industry base from its primary investments in paper product manufacturing, notebooks, rice, and industrial/residential real estate development sectors.
“As an entrepreneur in Philippines identifying businesses, I have never seen the economy, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growing this much in the last two to three years at 5 to 6 percent rate. We are looking forward to the remaining administration years of President Rodrigo Duterte and we’re seeing higher growth in the next few years to come,” he added.