iVantage sells stake in money remittance firm

Technology holding firm iVantage Corp. has sold its entire interest in money remittance firm iRemit Inc. to a group of local investors for about P51 million, a company official told the Philippine Stock Exchange.

iVantage corporate secretary A. Bayani Tan identified the buyers as JTKC Equities Inc., Surewell Equities Inc. and JPSA Global Services Co.

iRemit was organized as a wholly-owned subsidiary only last year, providing remittance services mainly for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) with its first overseas branch established in Hong Kong.

The divestment is in line with the rationalization of iVantage’s operations as it moves and expands further into the field of information technology (IT).

The former financial services holding firm Vantage Equities, it drifted into the IT sector in 2000 with the acquisition of controlling stakes in four companies: software provider Jupiter Systems Inc.; systems integrator Nexus Technologies; logistics and support network WordText Systems; Internet portal and search engine Yehey! Corp. Pte. Ltd.; web marketing development WS Fiesta Online Corp.; and medical transcriptor service IPD Systems Inc.

The publicly-listed iVantage is controlled by industrialist Ben Tiu of the International Exchange Bank (iBank), which is still the company’s core income driver, and shares a common set of shareholders with another listed firm, property developer Belle Corp., namely the Ocier group and the SM Group.

With iVantage’s shift into technology, it has sold off is 65- percent interest in each of the four affiliated investment firms under its wings for a combined value of P62.1 million.

The four companies are Philequity Management Inc. (PMI), Vantage PSE Index Fund Inc., Vantage Money Market Fund Inc. and Vantage Dollar Income Fund Inc. PMI is the investment manager of Philequity Fund Inc. which together with the three other companies are mutual fund entities. The companies were transferred to Wealth Securities Inc., controlled by former iVantage president and PSE chairman Wilson Sy.

Earlier, iVantage disposed of its 10-percent stake in Generali Pilipinas Holding Co. Inc. to Banco de Oro’s BDO Capital Investment Corp. for P67.685 million. GPHCI is the holding company of Generali Pilipinas Life Assurance Co., a life insurance firm, and Generali Pilipinas Insurance Co., which deals with non-life insurance.