PLDT completes P1.6 billion investment in software firm

MANILA, Philippines — Telco giant PLDT Inc. has completed its investment in Multisys Technologies Corp. which is equivalent to nearly half ownership stake in the local software development and IT solutions provider.

PLDT announced yesterday the closing of its investment in Multisys which, upon the approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the capital increase of Multisys, will result to the telco giant owning a total equity stake of 45.73 percent in the software firm through a combination of new and existing shares.

PLDT will infuse P1.6 billion fresh capital into Multisys. The investment will be done through its wholly owned subsidiary, PLDT Global Investments Holdings Inc.

“It is a good company that is making money. They are now in the next stage of development so they need a big brother like us to provide the funding because we’re suppling P1.6 billion of new capital into the business,” PLDT chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

“It has plenty of projects in the pipeline so that will fund those projects. And we forecast that its profits could double in 2019 or 2020,” he added.

Pangilinan earlier said the Multisys investment would position PLDT as a telecoms and digital services provider with core software development capabilities.

Multisys is also expected to strengthen the ongoing digital initiatives of ePLDT and Voyager Innovations, particularly in the fields of electronic payments and digital financial services.

PLDT sees the specialized industry solutions of Multisys to complement the suite of solutions of units PLDT Enterprise and ePLDT.

Multisys is founded by software programmer-entrepreneur David Almirol Jr. Over the past eight years, it has developed a number of software platforms that can be used by its pool of programmers to create highly scalable, flexible, and customizable software solutions as required by its clients. 

The software platforms include those for payment gateways such as Bayad Center, for utilities like power and water, for data center setup and connectivity, for big data handling and analytics, and cybersecurity.