Latest Injap, Tan Caktiong gamble to serve small investors in Q4
DragonFi Securities Inc., the stock brokerage venture led by tycoons Tony Tan Caktiong and Edgar “Injap” Sia II, is planning to make its formal launch by the fourth quarter of the year.
DragonFi is the new name of Tri-State Securities Inc., which was shuttered last year before it was acquired by BeeDragon Global Corp. in November 2021.
BeeDragon said in a statement on Monday it wanted to widen access to the stock market among the country’s retail or small investor market.
“Currently, less than 2 percent of the Philippines’ working-age population has a stock brokerage account. By making investing convenient and effortless, we hope to broaden participation in the capital markets, one of the key builders of wealth,” BeeDragon president and CEO Jon Carlo Lim said.
DragonFi said its investment platform would provide “fast, reliable and secure trade executions to the Philippine equity market.”
Fintech space
“By leveraging best-in-class investment technology, DragonFi will provide the most advanced web and mobile applications that will satisfy both neophyte and discerning investors alike,” the statement showed.
Article continues after this advertisementBeeDragon is owned by Lim alongside the private investment firms of Jollibee Foods Corp. founder Tan Caktiong (Honeystar Holdings Corp.) and Mang Inasal founder Sia (Injap Investments Inc.).
Article continues after this advertisementTan Caktiong and Sia also own listed property company DoubleDragon Corp.
BeeDragon Global aims to house the group’s financial technology-related investments.
“Mr. Tony Tan Caktiong and myself carefully select the specific business and industry we invest in, and we see this venture to have significant long-term growth potential, and as an important strategic addition to the ecosystem that we are building out for the past several years since our first partnership in Mang Inasal, and our succeeding partnership in DoubleDragon,” Sia said in the same statement.
“Over the long term, we also see the fintech space creating the synergic gel that would enhance and bring benefits to the various other business units in our ecosystem,” he added.
Lim, who was said to have over two decades of financial markets experience, has a masters in business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Moreover, BeeDragon director and chief technology officer, Cathryn Ann Lao, received her master of engineering in computer science from Cornell University. She worked in equities technology in New York for both Bank of America and Citigroup N.A.
