image credit: Bamboo Works
Key Takeaways:
Digiwin has filed for a Hong Kong IPO to complement its current Shenzhen listing, reporting stable but unimpressive profit growth over the last three years
The company's valuation isn't cheap, including a P/E ratio of more than 70 for its Shenzhen-traded shares
For Sun Ur-bane, the best decision he ever made was to shift the development focus of his company, Digiwin Co. Ltd. (300378.SZ), from his native Taiwan to the Chinese Mainland over two decades ago. That decision opened the door for Sun to ride an era of explosive growth among a new field of Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as Beijing embraced market economics. Now, Sun's company is taking further steps into the international market with its application last week for a Hong Kong IPO.
Born in Taiwan in 1948, Sun got degrees in physics and information management before founding Dingxin Computer in 1982. The company initially focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) products, and went on to list in Taiwan as its operations grew. It began to develop the Mainland China market after 2000, and at one point even established a joint venture with Digital China, the IT services spinoff of PC giant Lenovo.
Winning bet on the Mainland
As the 21st century began, Sun saw how China's economy was rapidly developing and the many business opportunities that presented. In response, he decided to concentrate his company's focus entirely on the Mainland. Reflecting that shift, he delisted his company from the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2008 and later renamed it as Digiwin.
That decision turned out to be the right one, as rapidly developing Mainland enterprises readily gobbled up Digiwin's ERP software. That growth led Digiwin to seek a new financial home on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's then-young ChiNext board for growth companies in 2014.
The company's current main business is providing digital and ...
