Yehey! eyes tieups ahead of 2007 IPO

Yehey!, the country’s leading local search engine, is in talks with a telecommunications company, media outfit and a financial services group as possible strategic investors in preparation for a planned initial public offering (IPO) in 2007.

Yehey! chief operating officer Kevin Khoe said Yehey! needs to tie-up with a telecommunications firm, media company and financial services group to ensure continued growth and further strengthen operations.

He refused to name the parties but said that about 10 to 20 percent of Yehey! will be sold to prospective investors.

Yehey! is 88 percent owned by iVantage, a publicly-listed holding with interests in banking, money remittance and information technology. For its planned IPO, Yehey! hopes to raise between P40 million and P80 million which will be used to fund its continued expansion in order to take advantage of the anticipated growth in the number of Internet users in the country.

"We want Filipinos to own a piece of the company. After all, Yehey! is one of the handful of Internet companies we can call our own," Khoe said.

Khoe remains optimistic that e-commerce has a viable future in the Philippines, given the increase in the number of Internet users in the country. From only 3.4 million in 2004, there are now a total of 4.5 million Internet users and this is expected to increase to seven million by yearend and much further to P9 million by 2006.

"Internet is the way to go, Internet will dramatically change how people communicate and do things. And definitely, Yehey! is expected to benefit from this," Khoe said.

To remain on top of the five most visited sites in the Philippines, Yehey! is rolling out new services and pushing to improve local content.

Khoe said the company will rebrand its lifestyle section and improve its entertainment channel to generate more traffic. Apart from this, Yehey! plans to grow its e-commerce venture through mass-based products.

Yehey! is now hitting 30 million page views per month (which means that an average user surfs close to 30 pages). It has some 280,000 registered members.

By yearned, Yehey! expects to have page views of 30 to 37 million.

The company’s bread and butter remains online advertising, mostly coming from global-based accounts including Dell, Levi’s, Ford, Intel, Nokia, and Citibank, HSBC and Sun Life Financial.

Khoe said the company is targeting to have a market capitalization of P400 million upon listing excluding boost from strategic partners.

Revenues currently stand at $500,000 and the figure is expected to grow to $1 million to $1.5 million by 2007. "We deliver 100 percent revenue growth per annum," Khoe said.

Yehey! also provides daily Philippine and Asian news, business and financial reports, sports, jobs and daily weather forecasts. It offers 24-hour business feed and real-time stock quotes for free, unlike with other sites.

It is also the center of a vibrant online community of Filipinos worldwide, who come together via the site’s Club Yehey services that include free e-mail, chat, and electronic forums.