KUALA LUMPUR: Foodie Media Bhd
will look at scaling up once it successfully lists on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd at the end of this month.
The digital media publisher is involved in creating, producing and publishing digital content on its social media pages across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and RedNote, to name a few.
It operates a portfolio of 37 lifestyle-focused brands in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Foodie Media founder and chief executive officer Nicholas Lim Pinn Yang said the company is looking to scale up rapidly.
“For the next two years, we will be focusing heavily on Malaysia. We want to be known as a homegrown name within the Asean region.
“We will also be hiring about 190 new people for our workforce in the next 36 months,” he said during a press conference after the launch of its prospectus for the initial public offering (IPO) here yesterday.
According to Lim, the group will also expand into more areas of coverage other than the ones they’re in right now.
At the moment, the food sector still contributes the most to its revenue at 86.7%.
“We are already in property, travel and cars among others, but we will be looking at going into beauty, luxury goods, and health and wellness.
“There is potential there and we will use the same methodology we used for food to enter these areas,” he said.
Foodie Media also aims to grow its campaign management service segment while increasing its revenue from live-eCommerce selling and its own short-format dramas.
Lim said, right now the group has three rooms within its office in Bangsar South that it uses for livestreaming, but the plan is to purchase a building that will have 30 rooms.
“With the new location, we want to not only create more space, but also give content creators an opportunity to provide more services as well as more product categories,” Lim said.
He added the group will look at maintaining margins about 20% on an annual basis and is confident the group will perform based on its previous earnings.
For its financial year ended Aug 31, 2024, the company reported a net profit of RM7.45 on revenue of RM23.95mil.
Foodie Media launched its IPO priced at 30 sen per share, aiming to raise RM41.4mil for the group.
The IPO will consist of a public issue of 138 million new ordinary shares, representing 15.54% of its enlarged issued share capital, and an offer for sale of 112 million existing shares, representing about 12.61% of the enlarged issued shares upon listing.
Of its IPO proceeds, 55.8% will go towards enlarging its workforce, 16.9% the purchase and renovation of a building for live streaming, and 1.7% for the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in its business.
Lim said the group has plenty of plans for AI that includes translating videos into other languages to increase its followers, which currently number 46 million across all platforms.
Maybank Investment Bank Bhd is the principal adviser, sponsor, sole placement agent and sole underwriter for the IPO.
Its chief executive officer, Michael Oh-Lau said the listing of Foodie Media marked the definitive coming of age for the content-creation industry.
