Malaysian private equity firm Creador has announced the acquisition of a 14.7% equity stake in CTOS Digital, a credit reporting agency headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.
The PE firm acquired the stake at a purchase price of 1.35 Malaysian ringgit per share through a rollover of its investment from Creador II to its fifth fund, Creador V.
Founded in 2014, CTOS Digital is the holding company of credit reporting agencies CTOS in Malaysia and BOL in Thailand. It offers digital products and credit risk management solutions and services to clients across Southeast Asia.
The company was listed on Bursa Malaysia in July 2021, raising 1.2 billion Malaysian ringgit (about $270 million). Its capitalisation as on April 19, 2023 stood at 3.1 billion Malaysian ringgit.
Creador first invested in CTOS in 2014 and has since then supported the company’s growth initiatives over the past nine years, per the announcement. The PE firm said it is confident of CTOS’s growth potential in Malaysia especially now that digitalisation of the financial services industry has increased and financial literacy among Malaysians has improved.
Last month, Credor made a complete exit from home improvement retailer MR D.I.Y through a private placement of 464 million shares, raising a total of about $150.5 million.
Creador said it had to exit the investment as the end of its fund life was approaching in August, according to a statement. Creador invested over $120 million in the company in 2016 in lieu of an 18% stake.
In an interview with DealStreetAsia in November, Creador’s top executives said the firm was looking to deploy about 35-40% of its fifth fund to companies in India as it bets big on sectors such as consumer, retail, financial services, and healthcare, among others.
The PE firm made headlines earlier in 2022 for raising as much as $700 million for its fifth fund, through which it plans to invest in companies in Southeast Asia and India.