Singapore based Credit Bureau Asia, which describes itself as a leading player in the credit and risk information solutions market in Southeast Asia, has lodged its preliminary prospectus.

“We hope investors will appreciate our unique, robust and highly cash generative business model in good and unprecedented times,” says Kevin Koo, executive chairman and CEO of CBA.  “We are a home-grown Singapore company, and our IPO will help to strengthen our position in the region and beyond,” he adds.

CBA provides credit and risk information solutions to an extensive client base of banks, financial institutions, multinational corporations, telecommunication companies, government bodies and public agencies, local enterprises and individuals.

It operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Myanmar.

CBA has two core segments, the financial institution data business and the non-financial institution data business, covering both consumer and commercial credit risk information.

For the non-financial institution data business, CBA has more than 6,000 customers (including MNCs and SMEs) and access to a database covering more than 330 million business records globally.

The products are sold via its subsidiaries, Dun & Bradstreet (Singapore) and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Malaysia, where local customers can purchase credit and risk information on business entities globally and businesses elsewhere can likewise purchase similar information on local companies. Both companies are members of the D&B Worldwide Network.

CBA believes it has strong growth prospects with the impending issuance of digital banking licences and the upcoming commencement of the Credit Bureau Act in Singapore.

For the year ended Dec 31 2019, CBA recorded $40.6 million in revenue up 8.6% over FY2018. Earnings for FY2019 was $7.02 million, up 28.6% from $5.5 million in FY2018. It reported EBITDA of $23.3 million for FY2019.  For the six months ended June 30, its earnings grew 12.2% y-o-y to $3.72 million and its EBITDA for the same period was $13 million.

The company will be launching its IPO with 30 million shares at 93 cents per share.

The shares will comprise 1.5 million offering shares by way of public offer and 28.5 million offering shares by way of placement.   Of the 30 million shares, 1 million of them are new shares to be issued by Credit Bureau Asia and 29 million are vendor shares which are being sold by CBA’s executive chairman and CEO Kevin Koo and William Lim, the company’s executive director.

The offering shares will represent about 13.0% of the total number of 230.4 million issued shares as at the date of the listing.

In addition, Aberdeen Standard Investments, Affin Hwang Asset Management, Eastspring Investments and Tokyo Shoko Research (or the cornerstone investors) have signed agreements to subscribe for a total of 28 million new shares at the offering price.   Tokyo Shoko Research is a member of the D&B Worldwide Network

The cornerstone shares will constitute about 12.2% of the total number of the 230.4 million issued shares.  Based on the offering price of 93 cents, CBA says its estimated post-IPO market capitalisation is expected to be at $214.3 million.  The offering will close at 12pm on Dec 1, 2020 and the listing and trading of CBA’s shares is expected to begin at 9am on Dec 3, 2020.  The board of CBA says it intends to recommend dividends of at least 90% of net profit after tax attributable to its shareholders (or earnings) for the financial years ended Dec 31, 2021 and Dec 31, 2022.

CIMB Bank Singapore is the issue manager for the IPO and CGS-CIMB Securities is the underwriter and placement agent.

Source:   The Edge Singapore news

This article was updated November 30th, 2020