Update from TheBull,com.au

http://www.thebull.com.au/premium/a...om-2013-that-look-good-at-current-prices.html


iBuy Group
This column had success with iProperty Group and iCars Asia, but fared less well with the third of the floats from the Catch Group stable, iBuy Group. I wrote about the e-commerce provider for The Bull in May when it traded at 31 cents, only to watch it tumble to 15 cents, despite solid operational progress.

I’ll stick with iBuy for now. Its e-commerce sites in six South East Asian countries had 8.2 million subscribers at June 2014. Users spent US$71.2 million through the sites in first-half 2014. The business focuses on “flash sales”, where retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers clear excess, obsolete, out-of-season or unbranded goods in huge sales, at heavily discounted prices.

iBuy is a more substantial business than when it floated at 32 cents a share, after raising $37 million in an IPO in December 2013. It bought LivingSocial’s South East Asian operations for $20.2 million earlier this year. That business has 4.3 million users through its e-commerce sites in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.
iBuy’s $64-million valuation could attract a suitor or strategic investors who want to get an e-commerce foothold in six South East Asian countries with a combined market of 471.8 million people, and access to a subscriber base of 8.2 million that is growing rapidly.

I’ve been wrong on iBuy so far, and as a micro-cap stock it clearly suits experienced investors who are comfortable with higher risk. But it’s hard to go past the Asian growth story, and the success of iCar and iProperty shows the long-term potential of iBuy.