SINGAPORE--National Computer Systems (NCS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Singapore Telecom Group (SingTel) today said it will sell 25 percent of its stake in e-commerce portal Sesami.com to Overseas Union Bank (OUB).
The deal, to be completed by year-end, is worth at least S$11 million, said Gracy Choo, executive vice president of national banking at OUB.
This will raise enough funds for Sesami.com, and NCS would not be actively looking for other investors, said NCS chief executive Lee Kwok Cheong.
He also said NCS expects positive cash flow by the end of the second year of Sesami.com's operation but revenue generated will be ploughed back to the startup for expansion.
OUB invested in the startup to seek new sources of revenue, Choo said. However, she expects the venture to contribute significantly to the bank's bottomline only in 10 years' time.
As the portal's second anchor tenant after SingTel, business transactions between the bank and all its suppliers will be managed on Sesami.net starting early next year after finalizing the deal. OUB will also be the preferred payment and settlement gateway for transactions conducted on the online marketplace.
Sesami.com was launched by NCS on September 1 to run a business-to-business (b-b) procurement portal called Sesami.net. To date, NCS has pledged S$45 million over five years to develop the e-procurement portal.
The portal aims to have US$14 billion in revenue by 2003, 5 percent of the Gartner Group projection of US$280 billion for business-to-business online trading in the Asia Pacific.
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