Call center braves IPO waters to raise P6M
Call center company Pikeville Bancshares, Inc. is considering raising as much as P6 million by braving the initial public offering (IPO) waters in July, a source privy to the deal told BusinessWorld.
The firm plans to list in the small and medium enterprise board, encouraged by the success of similar companies and the optimism in the country's business process outsourcing sector.
"It is a small issue. I think there should be interest among the retail brokers. At the end of the day, we still see growth in the call center or business process outsourcing (BPO) services industry. That seems to be where the
Abacus Capital and Investment Corp. was tapped as the sole underwriter for the shares to be listed in the SME board.
Paxys is the first listed call center in the country. It was incorporated as Fil-Hispano Ceramics, Inc. in 1952 as a tiles and ceramics manufacturer.
Data from the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) indicated said that Pikeville has filed a listing application last March. However, the source said the company is still waiting for the response of the PSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
"[They] already filed with the PSE and SEC. But they have few more questions and asked for more details," he added.
No offer price was available and nor were number of shares indicated. Its book value ratio is 1.44.
Incorporated on June 24, 1996, Pikeville is based in
The source said proceeds of the IPO will be used for its working capital and investments in the information technology sector.
"Aside from raising funds, Pike-ville's objective from the IPO is to gain a better corporate profile. As a listed company, the company expects to have better credentials when dealing with prospective clients here and abroad," he added.
Pikeville does consultancy work for Fortman Cline Australasia. It hopes to generate bigger bulk of revenues in call center referral.
"It acquires customers for call centers based here with excess capacity. It will get the demand side (such as) users based in the
Pikeville is owned by Rene B. Benitez, who is one of the founding directors of Amalgamated Investment Bancorporation (AIB) and a director of Fortman Cline
The AIB website said Mr. Benitez is a board member in Dearborn Motors Co., Makati Finance Corp., Vision Air Flight Support, Pikeville Inc., Philippines.com Holdings,
Prior to AIB, he was the chief executive and country manager for DBS Securities (Phils.), Inc. He also served as the vice president of Insular Investment and Trust Corp.
The SME index is a separate listing board for young and small firms. There are three firms under the SME index: online equity matchmaker Cashrounds, Inc., Makati Finance Corp. and information technology firm SQL Wizard, Inc. -- Ruby Anne M. Rubio
1 comment:
Philippine call center is getting lots of exposures all over the world. That is also why there are numbers of foreign countries who want to outsource their online businesses here. Having said that, it's a good thing that there are many people who can speak english fluently and are also fit for the call center jobs.
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