KUALA LUMPUR: Pertama Digital Bhd is acquiring an additional stake in govtech software company Dapat Vista (M) Sdn Bhd, raising its stake to 80 per cent.
Pertama Digital said its subsidiary Television Airtime Services Sdn Bhd (TAS) had exercised its contractual option to buy a further 24 per cent stake in Dapat from HeiTech Padu Bhd.
"Under the contract signed in 2019, TAS has the right to acquire up to 60 per cent ordinary shares in Dapat until December 2023.
"This contractual right is being executed a full 10 quarters before the deadline. Before 2020, TAS was a 20 per cent shareholder in Dapat while HeiTech held the remaining 80 per cent.
"Completion of the acquisition will see TAS increasing its ordinary shareholding to 80 per cent while HeiTech becomes a 20 per cent shareholder," it said.
Executive director Sabri Ab Rahman said Pertama Digital would capitalise on the business uptrends consistently delivered by Dapat throughout the pandemic and make good on its investment in TAS.
"Of course, this bodes well for Dapat's larger contribution to the bottomline of Pertama Digital," said Sabri.
Pertama Digital first bought a 51 per cent stake in TAS in May 2020.
Dapat owns and operates the government SMS portal mySMS, mobile payments app MyPay as well as eJamin, the world's first smartphone court bail payment solution, which is now live in courts all over Malaysia.
Recently, Pertama Digital's consortium applied for a digital banking licence from Bank Negara Malaysia.
It is focused on a collaborative approach with ecosystem players to provide ethical and productive financing for the financially underserved to fuel post-pandemic productivity.