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Upson International [UPSON 0.71, up 1.4%] [link] disclosed that it has disbursed 97% of the capital it raised from its IPO over two years ago. The IT and computer retailer told the Exchange it has spent P1.36 billion on “store network expansion and store improvement program” as of end-June 2025, using the P1.4 billion it netted from its maiden share sale. This left UPSON with P42.4 million in unspent IPO proceeds. UPSON offered 625 million shares at P2.40 each during its IPO on April 3, 2023.
MB bottom-line: UPSON had 247 stores at the end of March, and reports having spent more than P500 million on its “store network expansion and store improvement program” in Q1 and Q2 of this year. While it’s nice to get this kind of spending update, I’m sure shareholders are more interested in a construction progress update. Now that the IPO proceeds are substantially gone, how many new store locations could shareholders expect to come online in the next 12-18 months? How far along are these new stores? The company’s uptick in profitability and its dividend may have undercut the growing sentiment of this stock as a “dud”, but (in my book) those results don’t make up for the management team’s failure to communicate on why it has so dramatically underperformed its IPO prospectus estimate, where they are now, and what they plan to do about it. UPSON is up about 4% this year, but it’s down more than 20% over the last 12 months, and down 70% since its IPO. We should actually call this one DOWNSON, amirite? Haha maybe I’m still not fully recovered.
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