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Mega gears up for another public listing attempt

The Kim Dotcom-founded cloud storage firm Mega has had its company constitution updated ahead of plans to list on the NZX, following its failed back-door attempt in May this year.
Written by Asha Barbaschow, Contributor

Cloud storage firm Mega has updated its constitution, making it easier for the company to list after a failed attempt to join the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) through a back-door listing earlier this year.

The Kim Dotcom-founded organisation, which claims it has more than 18 million registered users, filed a new constitution to the Companies Office on Monday.

Mega added specific provisions for listing the company, stating that the "board shall take all reasonable steps to prepare the company for listing on a recognised stock exchange", as well as setting share sale restrictions for a maximum of 12 months from the date of joining a bourse, unless the board determines otherwise.

Mega chief executive Graham Gaylard said the new constitution will make it easier for the company to list, but declined to comment on the time frame for going public.

The company's website is already geared up to provide shareholder updates, with a page devoted to shareholder reports.

Mega launched in January 2013 while the legal battle over its founder's Megaupload site was still raging. The Megaupload empire was frozen a year prior to the launch of Mega, following claims from US authorities that it was part of an international organised criminal enterprise responsible for massive worldwide online piracy.

Plans for Mega to list on the NZX started in March last year, with the company originally attempting a reverse-takeover entry, via a 100 percent acquisition from already listed TRS Investments. At the time, TRS was going to purchase the Auckland-based company for NZ$210 million, and change its name to Mega.

In May this year, the back-door listing failed, with TRS saying it would be unable to secure shareholder approval for the deal by its May 29 cut-off date.

"I can't share the plans anymore; we are of course still a private company," Gaylard told ZDNet at the time.

Dotcom has stepped back from the cloud storage firm to fight his extradition and to bankroll the Internet Party, which failed to gain a seat in parliament during last year's New Zealand general election.

Dotcom's estranged wife, Mona Dotcom, holds 15 percent of the company through a trustee company. She is one of 16 registered shareholders of Mega, of which director Shen Zhao Wu is the biggest investor, with an almost 26 percent stake.

Earlier this year, PayPal ceased processing customer payments for Mega, saying that it believed Mega's encryption end-to-end model presented an "insurmountable difficulty".

At the time, Mega blamed PayPal's withdrawal on a report published by NetNames that claimed the New Zealand cloud storage company was an illegitimate business. Shortly after the report was published, Visa and MasterCard terminated their payment services to the companies named in the report -- including Mega -- and put pressure on PayPal to do the same.

With AAP

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