Fruitas Holdings files for IPO to fund business expansions

MANILA - Fruitas Holdings Inc. on Monday filed for an initial public offering (IPO) worth P1.2 billion with the Securities and Exchange Commission to fund its planned business expansions.

Proceeds from the IPO will be used to fund store network, commissary and food park expansions as well as acquisitions and debt repayment, the company said in a statement.

Fruitas Holdings said it planned to offer up to 533,660,000 primary common shares with an over-allotment option of up to 68,340,000 outstanding common shares at a maximum of P1.99 each.

“We view the potential listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange as part of our growth journey and are excited to have taken the first step by filing our registration statement," said Fruitas President and CEO Lester Yu.

BDO Capital Investment Corp. and First Metro Investment Corp. have been appointed as joint issue managers, joint bookrunners, and joint lead underwriters for the offering, the company said.

The offer period is intended to run from Nov. 18 to Nov. 22 and is subject to regulatory approvals, the company said. Target listing is end of 2019, Fruitas Holdings said.

The company has over 20 brands under its portfolio and 949 stores as of June 2019.


-- with a report from Michelle Ong, ABS-CBN News

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Dropbox seeks to hire IPO underwriters - sources

Data-sharing business Dropbox Inc is seeking to hire underwriters for an initial public offering that could come later this year, which would make it the biggest US technology company to go public since Snap Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The IPO will be a key test of Dropbox's worth after it was valued at almost $10 billion in a private fundraising round in 2014.

Dropbox will begin interviewing investment banks in the coming weeks, the sources said, asking not to be named because the deliberations are private.

Dropbox declined to comment.

Several big U.S. technology companies such as Uber Technologies Inc and Airbnb Inc have resisted going public in recent months, concerned that stock market investors, who focus more on profitability than do private investors, would assign lower valuations to them.

Snap, owner of the popular messaging app Snapchat, was forced to lower its IPO valuation expectations earlier this year amid investor concern over its unproven business model. Its shares have since lingered just above the IPO price, with investors troubled by widening losses and missed analyst estimates. It has a market capitalization of $21 billion.

Still, for many private companies, there is increasing pressure to go pubic as investors look to cash out.

Proceeds from technology IPOs slumped to $6.7 billion in 2015 from $34 billion in 2014, and shrunk further to $2.9 billion in 2016, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Dropbox's main competitor, Box Inc, was valued at roughly $1.67 billion in its IPO in 2015, less than the $2.4 billion it had been valued at in previous private fundraising rounds.

San Francisco-based Dropbox, which was founded in 2007 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, counts Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price and Greylock Partners as investors.

Dropbox started as a free service for consumers to share and store photos, music and other large files. That business became commoditized though, as Alphabet Inc's Google, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc started offering storage for free.

Dropbox has since pivoted to focus on winning business clients, and Houston, the company's CEO, has said that Dropbox is on track to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year.

The company has expanded its Dropbox Business that requires companies to pay a fee based on the number of employees who use it. The service in January began offering Smart Sync, which allows users to see and access all of their files, whether stored in the cloud or on a local hard drive, from their desktop.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pinterest gets $100 mil, led by Rakuten

SAN FRANCISCO — Japanese online giant Rakuten announced Thursday it was leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, a fast-growing U.S. bulletin-board style social media website.

Rakuten said it was joining with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, and “a number of angel investors.”

“The funding will allow Pinterest to continue improving its service and expanding its community globally,” a statement said.

“The investment also marks the start of a strategic partnership between Rakuten and Pinterest to help expand in Japan and into Rakuten’s 17 other global markets.”

Pinterest has become the web’s hottest young website, particularly among women, by giving people virtual bulletin boards that they decorate with pictures showcasing interests in anything from food to sports, fashion or travel.

It had more than 11 million unique visitors in surveys earlier this year, but some see a potential for the site to be used for e-commerce. The investment comes amid intense interest in social media with Facebook’s massive public offering this week.

Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of Rakuten said: “While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining.”

He added, “We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, said the site seeks “to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal.”

source: japantoday.com