Ban Leong is raising 4.3 million dollars in net proceeds

By Karen Tay

Homegrown IT product distributor, Ban Leong Technologies is raising some 4.3 million dollars in net proceeds through a share sale.

The mainboard-aspirant is selling nearly 29 million shares at 22 cents a piece.

Of that, 2.8 million will be set aside for the public and the rest are for institutional investors.

The bulk of the IPO proceeds will be used to increase Ban Leong's product range.

Its Managing Director, Ronald Teng also says the company is looking to expand its operations in Southeast Asia.

"Currently we have our Malaysian office and Thailand office. And all these countries have a huge potential growth for the product that we represent, especially in the IT. And also further on we might be also looking into potential new markets such as Vietnam and so on."

The group sells IT multimedia, data storage and accesories for over 40 brand names including Sony and Samsung.

It also plans to seek strategic alliances to expand its client network and distribution channels.

Last year, revenue rose about 46 percent to 63 million dollars, compared to 2002.