Malaysia-based business conglomerate Berjaya Corporation (BCorp) has revealed that it sold off 30% of its equity interest in Razer Fintech to Razer Midas for around $53.57 million (appr. RM 223.89 million).
BCorp will reportedly be holding onto the remaining 19% stake in Razer Fintech.
Before this announcement, BCorp was holding a 49% stake in Razer Fintech, meanwhile, Razer Midas had maintained the controlling 51% stake.
Jalil Rasheed, Chief Executive Officer at BCorp told Bernama that the divestments of its business interests in Razer Fintech is part of its ongoing transformation strategy. The firm’s plans are focused on enhancing existing operations while prioritizing higher growth ventures/opportunities across its core business units.
He added that in the case of Razer, it was “especially appealing as [they] had a significant return on [their] investment in a relatively short time.”
This move appears to be in line or consistent with BCorp’s plans to reduce its overall debts by half or 50% (RM2.5 billion from RM5 billion) over three years that was revealed in June 2021.
As part of this move, the Malaysian conglomerate had shared a 3-year strategic roadmap to divest non-core businesses. This development follows the shutdown of Razer’s digital wallet service, Razer Pay.
As covered, Razer Fintech is the financial technology division of Razer Inc (1337: Hong Kong). Established in April 2018, Razer Fintech – with a goal to build a global ecosystem – claims to be one of the few Fintech firms that has developed a solid B2B and B2C value proposition, providing comprehensive solutions to businesses and consumers operating in Southeast Asia.
With head offices in Singapore and Malaysia, Razer Fintech has grown to become one of the largest O2O (offline-to-online) virtual payment networks in Southeast Asia. As one of the pioneers in Southeast Asia’s Fintech ecosystem, Razer Fintech has handled billions of dollars in total payment value – operated through its B2B business, Razer Merchant Services (RMS).
RMS is an established B2B solution encompassing online payments – which includes a card processing gateway supporting international scheme cards and more than 110 payment methods, powering payments for the largest brands.
RMS also includes offline payments. More than 2 million physical points across SEA, offering point of sale services such as the distribution of games and entertainment, along with Point-of-sale-activated (POSA) cards/ PINs, cash over counter services, and third party acquiring for the largest regional digital wallets