Kronologi Asia seals underwriting agreement with Bank Islam for IPO

PETALING JAYA: Enterprise data management (EDM) specialist Kronologi Asia Bhd has sealed an underwriting agreement with Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd for its proposed listing exercise on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia.
Kronologi's initial public offering (IPO) will involve a public issue of 59.247 million new ordinary shares with a par value of 10 sen each.
In a statement yesterday, it said the public issue comprises 4.74 million shares for Malaysian public, 7.109 million shares for the eligible directors, employees and persons who have contributed to the success of Kronologi group and 47.398 million via private placement to identified investors.
Bank Islam is the principal adviser, sole underwriter, sponsor and placement agent for Kronologi's listing.
Bank Islam underwrote the total 11.849 million shares made available for Malaysian public and eligible directors, employees and persons who have contributed to the success of Kronologi group.
The proposed listing is expected to take place before the year is out.
Kronologi has carved a niche for itself as a provider of EDM solutions and services to help businesses manage risk arising from data loss.
It provides mission critical management of data such as back-up, storage, recovery and restoration for business assurance and operational continuity. Regular health checks, capacity planning, remote monitoring and disaster recovery to its customers complete its range of service offerings.
With 12 years of experience in EDM and regional presence in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and India, Kronologi counts blue chip companies as its customers.
Kronologi's customers are the region's leading businesses such as Starhub in Singapore, Public Bank in Malaysia, PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited in Thailand, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company in the Philippines and companies within the Pertamina Group in Indonesia.
Kronologi's forte in EDM is its offering of EDM infrastructure technology for the past 12 years while its EDM managed services which targets a different market segment was newly launched in 2012.
Kronologi Asia Group CEO Piti Pramotedham said the economy is increasingly moving towards a digitised space and, more than ever before, IT has become mission critical to businesses.
"Protecting, storing, backing up, and being able to recover and restore digital data is therefore vital to businesses and enterprises.
"With the Southeast Asian economy being powered by a sizeable number of mid-market companies (i.e. larger Small and Medium Enterprises and smaller enterprises), the opportunity is to tap into these market which is seeking a more cost-efficient and effective solutions for their EDM needs.
"Kronologi has built on our experience and expertise in EDM infrastructure technology (hardware and software including value added services and solutions as well as maintenance and technical support) over the years, and recently began to offer EDM managed services.
"Our EDM managed services is an ideal solution for mid-market companies that prefer low capital expenditure (capex) and IT resources but still want to practise good risk management in terms of data protection and business continuity," Pramotedham added.
The importance of data management could not have been more emphasised than the data loss statistics.
The casualty rate attributed to data loss is at seven out of 10 small businesses going out of business within one year, and companies that are unable to bounce back within ten days of losing their data centre due to a disaster are likely to close down.
Independent Market Research company, Smith Zander International Sdn Bhd has forecasted the EDM industry in Southeast Asia to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.3% from 2014 to 2016 to reach US$937.3 million (RM3 billion) in 2016.
Bank Islam managing director Datuk Seri Zukri Samat said: "This IPO of Kronologi is the fourth listing exercise and first ACE Market listing that we have advised. We are pleased that more corporations are putting their trust and confidence in Bank Islam. Kronologi is an established company that has grown to be a regional player and I am confident of their potential."