Cashrounds files IPO application

Despite the bearishness of the stockmarket, Cashrounds Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of investment house Amalgamated Investment Bancorporation, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a registration statement covering its planned initial public offering of shares.

Cashrounds is an online matchmaker for companies looking for private equity financing from institutional or strategic investors.

Based on documents filed at the SEC, Cashrounds will offer to the public eight million shares at P1 per share. The shares, representing 28.57 percent of the firm’s total outstanding capital, will be listed at the small and medium enterprise (SME) board of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).

Net proceeds from the offering, amounting to P6.8 million, will be used for additional working capital in anticipation of higher business volumes and transactions, hardware and software upgrades of its interactive website, and for increased marketing and promotional activities.

Cashrounds is registered with the Board of Investments as a new information technology service firm.

The company’s product can be best described as an electronic matchmaking or brokering via the Internet between investors and companies looking for equity funding outside of the stockmarket.

Through its online website, Cashrounds provides a platform where entrepreneurs of small and medium-size enterprises (particularly those engaged in the IT sector) can present their business plans online, have them evaluated by the investment bankers behind the company, and privately placed with interested and qualified investors in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cashrounds started as MF Schroeder & Co. Inc. on June 5, 1996, initially to engage in the purchase and sale of securities. Around early 1998, it changed its name to MFS Markets following a change in its ownership.

In March 2002, there was again a change in name to Cashrounds with the primary purpose of linking and matching SME businesses, in both traditional and growth industries, in need of additional investment capital and funding to expand and operate their respective businesses with potential investors using the new information technology.

Listed as shareholders/directors of the company are Ramon Garcia Jr., Juan Carlos Del Rosario, Rene Benitez, Stanley Saguinsin, and Paul Wong Pau Lu.

AIB, on the other hand, is owned by a group of Filipino-Singaporean investors, including the SNP Corp. Ltd. of Singapore, which holds a 30 percent interest, MF-AIB Holdings Inc. (25 percent), Hiap Moh Corp. Ltd. (20 percent), Pioneer Ventures Inc. (8.33 percent), and Cezar T. Quiambao, the chief executive officer of Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp.