Spice Global may float IPO by year-end

After scrapping its plans to get listed on the Dubai bourse in 2009, BK Modi-led Spice Global, the Singapore-based holding company, might look to raise up to $1 billion on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) this calendar year.

The fund is expected to be used for telecom-related acquisitions in Africa and West Asia.

Spice Global, the group holding company that covers Spice Mobility, Spice Enfotainment, Spice Investment and Finance Advisors and Spice Innovative Technologies, has a substantial presence in India, especially in mobile telephony.

“Spice Global is considering listing here, rather than the London Stock Exchange or the New York Stock Exchange, if certain proposed changes, including greater allowance of global brokers as well as mobile and internet trading, can be implemented on the SGX,” Modi told Business Standard.

“I had said in 2009 that we feel our valuation in 2011 could be up to $2 billion and we will raise about $1 billion. But it depends… the listing will not happen before June. We will only take a decision after six months,” Modi said, adding that he was continuing to monitor the UK and US exchanges.

Modi is understood to be bullish about the Singapore bourse, due to the possibility of the SGX merging with Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The Indian businessman, who had also bid for Satyam Technologies, is watching the proposed listing of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s company, Hutchison Whampoa, on the Singapore exchange.

Hutchison Whampoa’s initial public offer, according to reports, could be the largest ever listing for the SGX and may raise up to $6 billion, as part of Li’s efforts to separate the Hong Kong and South China port operations of the firm.

In 2009, after the aborted Dubai plan, Modi had said he would aim to raise money on another exchange in 2011, while adding that Singapore’s exchange was “too small” and would “need a tie-up”. But that could change if the proposed SGX-ASX merger comes through.

Modi, however, confirmed that the listing would happen within this calendar year, for which it has roped in Edelweiss for consultative functions.The raised funds would be deployed for making additional acquisitions in West Asia and Africa.

“We will now move to Africa and the Middle East, and the $1 billion that we raise will be utilised here. There are proposals on the table, and we already have offices in places like Nigeria and Dubai. But we will not start from zero-base in any country. We will acquire and then grow. It will be a combination of inorganic and organic growth,” said Modi.

Spice Global, through its subsidiary Spice Innovation Technologies, already has a large footprint in Southeast Asia largely built on acquisitions undertaken in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia — the last of which was completed earlier this month.