GLOBE TELECOM, Inc. is buying back all its shares in Xurpas, Inc. subsidiary in a move expected to benefit its enterprise business.
In separate disclosures to the stock exchange Wednesday, the two companies announced Globe is buying back 51% or 22,950 shares from Xurpas subsidiary Yondu, Inc., making it the sole owner of the company again.
The transaction is priced at P501 million, which Globe paid in cash after signing and executing the Deed of Sale of Shares yesterday.
“Bringing Yondu into the Globe value chain will promote synergies and strengthen the position of our enterprise business. We believe in Yondu’s growth prospects as we leverage on its capabilities in a robust IT industry,” Ernest L. Cu, president and chief executive officer of Globe, was quoted in a statement as saying.
To recall, Xurpas bought 51% of Yondu from Globe in 2015. Its divestment now is expected to give the company “additional liquidity, (retired) debt, and (room) to focus on high-value, emerging, innovative, and disruptive technologies and platforms,” Alexander D. Corpuz, Xurpas president, said in a statement.
Yondu handles content development and provides mobile value-added services and information technology services. Xurpas said the company has grown to include service management, software development and turnkey solutions to its portfolio since it invested in the company four years ago.
“The transaction is consistent with Globe’s strategic imperative of developing its ICT capabilities responsive to the changing needs of its customers,” Globe said in its statement. “Yondu’s strong IT core competencies combined with Globe’s digital expertise will strengthen the value proposition of products and services catered to enterprise clients.”
In another disclosure, Xurpas also announced it is dissolving its subsidiaries Xeleb Technologies, Inc. and Xeleb, Inc., which handled celebrity-themed mobile games. It said the two companies “have no significant contribution to the Xurpas Group,” hence its board decided to approve their dissolution.
Meanwhile, Globe claimed in a separate statement the price of its mobile data services are one of the cheapest ones in the region, standing at $0.43 or approximately P22.50 per gigabyte (GB).
Comparing its prices to that of network operators in six countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India and China, Globe said its prices were the second lowest, only beaten by India at $0.23 per GB.
“With our customers’ surging demand for mobile data consumption, providing more economical data promos is more important than ever. We will continue to…create more cost-effective promos to give our customers the best possible quality of experience,” Mr. Cu was quoted as saying. — Denise A. Valdez
