Malaysia’s Kenanga Investment Bank invests US$5.2 million in Singapore fintech Helicap

MALAYSIA-BASED Kenanga Investment Bank on Monday (Sep 2) announced it has invested in Singapore fintech company Helicap to advance the bank’s digitalisation initiatives.

The Business Times understands the investment amount is US$5.2 million.

Kenanga said it has taken an 8 per cent stake in Helicap through a fund managed by its asset and wealth management arm Kenanga Investors.

The stake will be increased to around 10 per cent in the future, with the aim of making Kenanga the largest institutional investor in Helicap.

The investment is part of Helicap’s Series B funding round, led by Kenanga alongside Saison Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of Japan-listed Credit Saison.

Helicap is a private investment platform for alternative lending and offers a proprietary credit analytics engine. Since its establishment in 2018, Helicap has deployed almost S$500 million, offering investment opportunities in South-east Asia to accredited and institutional investors.

Kenanga’s group managing director Chay Wai Leong said the investment into Helicap is a “natural progression” in the investment bank’s digitalisation, as its technology can potentially be embedded into Kenanga’s lending and investment banking business.

This would “provide greater loan book transparency and analysis, portfolio and credit risk monitoring and granular data to identify nascent opportunities and obtain microeconomic insights”, he said.

David Wang, Helicap’s co-founder and chief executive, said the collaboration will unite “Kenanga’s robust local market presence and billions in assets with an extensive client base with Helicap’s powerful, sector-agnostic, data-driven platform and proprietary analytics technology”.

Shares of Kenanga Investment Bank, which is listed on Bursa Malaysia, closed at RM1.08, down 0.9 per cent or RM0.01, on Monday.