SESAMi and Asia2B merge
According to the joint press release by the two companies, the alliance will bring together the respective companies’ shareholder and customer base, geographic and industry coverage, and e-commerce expertise.
The combined entity will bring to Asia’s burgeoning e-commerce space a wide base of blue-chip customers. Some 1300 trading companies and market makers from a spectrum of industries including Singapore Airlines, Swire Pacific, Eastman Chemical, Jardine Matheson Group, ST Microelectronics, New T&T, New World BioSciences, China Pharmaceutical and Jurong Town Corporation, number among the two companies’ customers.
The new entity will be known as SESAMi Inc., with a capitalisation of US$72 million and the shareholder weighting evenly split. Mr Lee Hsien Yang has been named chairman and Mr Stephen Ng, vice chairman of SESAMi Inc. With a combined strength of 120 across offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Singapore, the company will operate throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The new entity aims to enable companies in the region to conduct e-business with the rest of the world through SESAMi.NET and to be the e-hub of choice for players outside the region seeking an e-business gateway to Asia as well as for domestic players seeking regional expansion. It will offer end-to-end collaborative commerce management solutions, and its infrastructure will support business services such as trade finance, logistics integration, insurance, payment and settlement and other industry-specific services.
Commenting on the merger, Mr Lee Hsien Yang, chairman of SESAMi.com, stressed, “This partnering of two e-commerce leaders will propel SESAMi Inc to be the preferred e-commerce partner in Asia. Companies will leverage SESAMi.NET for immediate access to dynamic trading communities. The strength of this new entity will accelerate SESAMi’s progress toward creating Asia’s dominant infrastructure for electronic commerce."
He added, "Furthermore, the creation of SESAMi Inc will be the first major move in the industry consolidation that is necessary to make e-commerce a cornerstone of international trade.”