PH tech firm Xurpas surges 50 pct in market debut

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine technology company Xurpas Inc saw its shares surge nearly 50 percent on Tuesday morning, as it made its debut at the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Reuters reported Xurpas shares rose 49.87 percent in early trading, from its offer price of P3.97 each.

Xurpas, which develops digital products and services for mobile users, raised P1.36 billion ($30.4 million) from its initial public offering.

Xurpas is planning to grow its operations in the Philippines and expand to Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand.

The popularity of casual games has helped fuel the growth of Xurpas in the last few years.

Founded by three tech entrepreneurs -- Nix Nolledo, Raymond Gerard Racaza and Fernando Jude Garcia -- the company is one of the largest independent mobile consumer content providers in the Philippines in terms of revenue, with clients such as Smart, Globe and Sun Cellular. - With Reuters

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

PSE approves mobile content provider Xurpas' P1.36-B IPO

MANILA – The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has approved the P1.36 billion initial public offering of mobile content provider Xurpas Inc.

Xurpas will offer up to 344 million common shares at an offer price of P3.97 per share, which is 5.2 percent lower than the P4.19 indicative offer price that was earlier set.

The offer period will be from November 17 to 25 while the listing date has been tentatively set for December 2.

The tech company said it will use the proceeds from the offering to fund its domestic and regional expansion and acquisitions as well as for general corporate purposes including working capital requirements.

The bulk of the proceeds or about 60 percent will be allocated to fund expansions to Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand.

About 20 percent will be used to develop and expand its existing content and the remaining 20 percent will be spent for general corporate purposes.

Xurpas that while the offer period has yet to start, the order book for its offer is already more than 100 percent covered.

"The quality of the book is good, with substantial volumes coming from domestic and foreign qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) and long-only funds who are expected to be long-term holders in the offered shares," the company said.

SB Capital Investment Corp. serves as sole issue manager and lead underwriter while First Metro Investment Corp and Unicapital Inc. are co-lead underwriters.

Philippine Commercial Capital Inc., PentaCapital Investment Corp. and Abacus Capital & Investment Corp. are participating underwriters.

Xurpas is set to become the fifth company to list with the PSE this year after DoubleDragon Properties Inc., Century Pacific Food Inc., and SSI Group Inc. Phoenix Semiconductor Philippines Inc. will be listed with the PSE on December 1.

Its net income in the first half of the year surged to P104.84 million from P44.33 million in the same period last year driven by higher revenues. The firm expects to end 2014 with profits of P210 million and revenues of P380 million.

Xurpas is engaged in the creation and development of digital products and services for mobile end-users, as well as the creation, development and management of proprietary platforms for mobile operators.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com