CitisecOnline makes strong stock market debut

CitisecOnline made a strong market debut yesterday as its shares closed 23.5 percent above their initial public offering (IPO) price, swayed up by the promising growth potentials of the online trading business.

CitisecOnline, the first online brokerage house to be listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and the second IPO so far this year, opened at P1.50 a share before closing at P1.60, bucking a weaker wider market trend as investors took profits given worries over security in East Asia and rising oil prices.

The online brokerage firm offered a total of 110 million common shares at P1.36 each.

"This only goes to show that people believe in the prospects of our business," said CitisecOnline president Conrado Bate as he noted that the firm’s customer base has almost tripled over the past 12 months to 600.

He said the online brokerage firm is expected to end the year with a total of 1,000 clients as it hopes to tap the underserved middle-income investors who make up a potentially huge customer base.

"We believe that our growth will come from smaller yet upwardly mobile investors. Through superior online tools and functionalities, we have been exposing them to opportunities in the stock market," Bate said.

He said average website visits per month has grown to 4.6 million hits this year from only 2.3 million a year ago with new visitors rising to 18,000 from over 5,000 in 2005.

He said that as Filipino Internet users increase, from the current 12 million to a projected 22 million by 2008, converting these people to online trading would become an easier job as evidenced in other markets like Hong Kong, South Korea and India.

CitisecOnline chairman Edward Lee, for his part, said the company aims to "revolutionize" the way Filipinos invest in the stock market.

"Because of advances in technology and our in-house development of a robust and easy to use platform, we are now able to broadcast more efficiently and transparently through the Internet, overcoming boundaries of distance and lack of accessibility," Lee said in his speech during the company‘s listing rites yesterday.

Bate said the company hopes to break even this year on increased market volume coming from more retail investors. In the first quarter this year, CitisecOnline made a pretax profit of P3 million as against a net loss of P86,000 a year earlier.

Formed in 1999, CitisecOnline intends to use the proceeds from the IPO to boost working capital to support new products and features, and to further develop its technical infrastructure.

CitisecOnline owns CitisecOnline.com Hong Kong Ltd, a member of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which is currently developing an online platform for the Hong Kong and China markets.

In line with its goal to become a leading online financial service provider in Asia, CitisecOnline intends to empower retail customers with online tools and market information to help them make well-informed investment decisions and achieve financial independence. It also plans to pursue additional revenue opportunities, such as subscription-based revenue services.

To enhance marketing focus and provide premium service to customers, CitisecOnline will continue to embark on an aggressive campaign, which include advertisements in various broadsheets, and educate the market by offering seminars on stock market basics.