IP Converge Data sells 80% equity to 8990 Group

(Updated 6: 49 p.m.) IP Converge Data Center Inc. (CLOUD) on Tuesday told the Philippine Stock Exchange it sold 79.507 percent of its capital stock at P0.95 per share to Januarius Resources Reatly Corporation Holdings Inc. and Kwantlen Development Corporation.   Trading of CLOUD shares were voluntary halted in the first hour of trading.   The buyers, also known as the 8990 Group, offered to buy 176.4 million CLOUD shares.   8990 Group is actually buying CLOUD merely as a shell company, Cary Lagdameo, chief investment officer of IP Ventures Inc., told GMA News Online.   This means that CLOUD assets were already transferred to IP Ventures, its private holding company, Lagdameo added.   Internet and telecommunications company CLOUD requested for a trading halt “to give the public sufficient time to digest the said disclosure,” the company said in a statement released to the PSE.   CLOUD said the purchase came after IP Ventures and IPVG Employees Inc. entered into a share purchase agreement with 8990 Group, which bought the remaining shares of CLOUD’s minority owners.   The 8890 Group has led low cost housing developments in the Visayas and Mindanao, and is now engaged in 15 projects in Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, and Pampanga.   CLOUD declared last May a cash dividend of 7 cents per share, which translates to 16 percent yield at Monday’s closing price of P4.29 per share.   The IT company said it expects “historic highs both in terms of revenues and earnings” following the buy-in.   With the purchase agreement, IP Ventures is expecting above P2 billion in revenues.   "The Group 8990 is a relatively sizeable player in the real estate industry," Lagdameo said.   The terms and conditions of the mandatory tender offer are yet to be disclosed. Lagdameo said discussions on the agreement will start this Friday until late July.   According to its website, CLOUD “offers superior packages of integrated IT services to businesses, institutions and other service providers” which “include Internet data center services, dedicated Internet connectivity, network security, and a host of enterprise cloud services.” —VS, GMA News