KUALA LUMPUR: Seni Jaya Corporation Bhd intends to reposition as a leading player in the industry with added emphasis on tech-driven out-of-home (OOH) media.
The company, which is currently undertaking a three-year transformation plan which started in May this year, is also focused on healthy and sustainable financial returns to shareholders.
Chief executive officer Jeff Cheah See Heong said this (the enlarged portfolio) is achieved through various means, including
strategic collaborations with other OOH media players, acquiring digital
and technological advertising media companies, as well as upgrading the company's existing advertising structures and purchasing new ones to include more
digital elements.
"To date, we have entered into strategic collaborations with other OOH media players such as Unilink Outdoor Group, Vision OOH, and Andaman to form an enlarged portfolio.
"In terms of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities, we have acquired a 40 per cent stake in Noisy Sherbert, which owns a proprietary programmatic digital out of home advertising (pDOOH) software.
"As a result of all that, we have become the second-largest OOH advertising services provider in terms of inventory and asset diversity in September 2021," he told The New Straits Times, adding the Seni Jaya have become the second-largest OOH advertising services provider in terms of inventory and asset diversity in September 2021.
To elaborate, pDOOH is essentially an automated buying, selling, and delivery process for digital OOH ads.
The difference between pDOOH and traditional OOH is data-driven ad targeting. Therefore, this media is ideal for delivering advertisers' messages to unreachable areas by conventional location-based billboards.
When asked about capital expenditure for the transformation plan, Jeff said the company plan to allocate around RM50 million for the three-year plan.
To date, Seni Jaya has utilised RM5 million to acquire Topper Media, while the balance of RM15 million comes from the proceeds raised from the company's private placement exercise.
Approximately RM10 million is earmarked for business expansion in the form of acquisition or joint-venture (JV).
"Meanwhile, about RM5 million will be used
progressively to upgrade our existing advertising structures as well as
setting up new ones to add more digital elements such as LED screens to
our advertising services.
"Furthermore, we have just announced another proposed private placement to raise gross proceeds of over RM30 million, which will further enhance our expansion potential," Jeff said.
Last Wednesday, Seni Jaya announced plans to undertake a private placement exercise involving the issuance of up to 14.56 million new ordinary shares.
The company has also proposed to undertake a bonus issue of up to 262.08 million new ordinary shares based on three bonus shares for every one Seni Jaya share held on an entitlement date to be determined later.
The 14.56 million placement shares will be offered to third-party investors at an issue price to be determined later.
At an indicative price of RM2.33 per placement share, the private placement is expected to raise gross proceeds of up to RM33.98 million under the maximum scenario, which assumes all warrants are exercised before the exercise.
The exercise is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2022.
"As you can see, we are taking proactive measures and working on this transformation plan to turn things around.
"We believe our digitalisation efforts are sufficient to future-proof Seni Jaya in the OOH industry for some time.
"Along with our new market standing as the second-largest OOH advertising services provider in the country, we are in a good position to capitalise on the recovery of the OOH industry as it departs from, hopefully, the worst of the pandemic.
"Thus, we expect our financial year (FY22) to be a much better year," Jeff said.
He said Seni Jaya has been conducting asset rationalisation exercises and gradually trimming down non-performing sites and inventories.
"Along with the addition of pDOOH and an enhanced portfolio, we are confident that
these drivers will push the company to a much-improved year," said Jeff.
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