Malaysia's Ekuinas buys mobile payments firm, school chain

Ekuinas paid MYR54 million for 60% stake in Tranglo and MYR70 million for 70% stake in Tenby, according to a statement.

Tranglo provides a platform through which mobile companies can facilitate secure cross-border transfers of pre-paid credit and cash remittances. The company represents Ekuinas' first investment in the technology, media and telecom sector.

"While the mobile remittance services sector is still relatively nascent, the potential is enormous for Tranglo given the huge international remittance market in Asia alone is currently estimated at $200 billion," said Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda, chairman of Ekuinas."This presents a unique opportunity for Ekuinas to back Tranglo to potentially become a global leader in international airtime transfer and mobile to cash remittance services."

Tenby - which was acquired via Ekuinas' education arm, ILMU Education Group (ILMU) - runs five international and private schools in Malaysia. It posted revenue of MYR83 million and EBITDA of MYR18.9 million for the financial year ended June 2014.

ILMU's portoflio includes Asia Pacific Smart School and Asia Pacific International School, Unitar International University, Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT) and Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University College.

Including these recent investments, Ekuinas has now invested MYR606 million in the 2014 financial year. In total, the firm has made 33 investments totalling MYR3 billion since inception in 2009.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Expansion
• Malaysia
• TMT
• Technology
• Education
• Ekuinas
• Growth capital