Nextstage to transform into holding company

MANILA, Philippines - Dormant listed firm Nextstage Inc. plans to transform itself into a holding company for its various businesses in Southeast Asia.

The company aims to revive itself through new business ventures as it seeks the lifting of a trading suspension in the local bourse.

In a disclosure, Nextstage said it approved the business plan proposed by its president JJ Samuel A. Soriano.

Nextstage said it plans to “revitalize the company into a holding company for projects, ventures, businesses and assets primarily in the ASEAN, Japan and neighboring Asian countries without industry-specific limitations.”

“Such plan widens the reach of the company and hedged the company’s well-being across the performance of all the ASEAN member economies,” it added.

Emerging markets, particularly those in Southeast Asia like the Philippines and Indonesia, are expected to post robust economic growth amid continuing weaknesses in advanced economies.

ASEAN, for its part, is creating a single economic bloc by 2015 that will make the region a single production hub with free trade of goods and services.

Nextstage’s board also allowed management to file a petition to lift the trading suspension with the Philippine Stock Exchange and the plea for the Securities and Exchange Commission to repeal the suspension order of the company’s certificate of registration.

Shares of the company were last traded on April 26, 2006, closing at P3 apiece.

Nextstage was originally incorporated in 1964 as Pacific Cement Co. Inc. to engage in the manufacture and trading of cement and related products.

It changed its name to Pacemco Holdings Inc. and its corporate purpose to that of being a holding firm in 2000. That same year, Pacemco merged with Nextstage.

Nextstage has three subsidiaries: Mondex Philippines Inc., Infinit-e Asia Inc. and Technology Support Services Inc. (TSSI).

Mondex operates a multi-application smart card system in the Philippines while Infinit-e is a software development company specializing on smart card and e-commerce solutions.

TSSI is into businesses that are aligned with global technology business developments such as business process outsourcing, applications service providers and managed service providers using mobile and Internet access.