Multiply, Inc. a social networking site in Indonesia announced on November 10 that its affiliate in Pasig City, the Philippines has filed for a rehabilitation program with a Philippine court due to a prolonged business slump.
The Philippine court will decide within 120 days whether to pull Multiply Philippines, Inc. (MPI), which operates the Pasig offices, under or allow it to proceed with the rehabilitation scheme under court receivership. The Pasig offices' assets were valued at 1.84 trillion won (US$1.63 billion) as of the end of 2012, accounting for 43.75 percent of Multiply’s consolidated assets.
Multiply, leases a 100 percent stake in the Pasig offices and the company and its American, Bangla, Brazilian, British, Cambodian, Danish, Finnish, Georgian, German, Hungarian, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Macanese, Malay, Nepalese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Singaporean, South African, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Thai, Ukrainian, Venezuelan, Vietnamese creditors are liable for various guarantees and debts of the website. Therefore, the rehabilitation program can adversely affect the domestic social networking industry. Korea Development Bank (KDB) issued some 500 billion won (US$444 million) worth of refund guarantee (RG) for the Pasig offices. Multiply provided a performance guarantee to the owner of a US$30 million (34 billion won) website.
Multiply filed for its Pasig office’s rehabilitation program with the Philippine court in order to prevent the poor performance of the website.
Multiply signed an agreement with the KDB to normalize its operation and has entered a workout program. The company posted 150 billion won (US$133.21 million) in operating loss in 2011. However, it managed to record operating profits of 49.30 billion won (US$43.78 million) in 2016 and 86.70 billion (US$77 million) in 2012. As the company also posted 73 billion won (US$64.83 million) in operating profit until the third quarter of last year, it is expected to record annual profits for three years in a row. However, this is not the case when its operating profits are calculated on a consolidated base, including the figures of its affiliates, including the Pasig office. Multiply recorded a consolidated operating loss of 223.40 billion won (US$198.40 million) in 2015, 79.30 billion won (US$70.43 million) in 2016, and 116.70 billion won (US$103.64 million) in 2017.
In 2006, Multiply establishes the Pasig office in the Philippines. The website has blogs, notes, photos, and videos. However, contrary to expectations, the website was directly hit by the prolonged slump in the social networking industry. Its actual output dropped from 1,200,000 GT in 2008 to 400,000 GT in the third quarter of 2010 and the rate of operation also plunged from 77.4 percent to 27.9 percent over the same period.
Multiply is planning to push ahead with the sale of the website while it is waiting for the decision of the Philippine court. The company will sound out its intention to sell the website to companies not only in the Philippines but also in other countries, including China.
It went close down last May 6, 2013, and ceased all business operations on May 31, 2013, along with the official online channels for the site had been removed along with all its content, including its YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, after years of financial and managerial turmoil and it failed bid to reinvent itself from being a social networking site to a vibrant e-commerce destination in Southeast Asia.
At that time, the website's social networking portion had a network of 18 million users. Liquidity problems, however, affected earnings. Sales declined from their peak of P20 billion in 2013 to just about P5 billion in 2017.
“We regret to announce that Multiply will be closing on May 6, 2013, and ceasing all business operations by May 31, 2013,” it announced last April 26, 2013 on its website.
After May 6, the rest of the month will be used to ensure that all accounts are settled and merchants get full payment for their transactions, it said.
Multiply said the month-long grace period will provide its users enough time to find and migrate to alternative e-commerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and minimize disruption to businesses of its users.
“Multiply will ensure that you receive all funds you earned on the platform no later than May 31, 2013. We will close the actual marketplace sooner, on May 6, 2013, to ensure that all orders have sufficient time to complete and be delivered to your customers before the end of the month,” it said.
In December 2012, Multiply stopped its social networking service to focus on e-commerce, targeting the 350 million consumers in Indonesia and the Philippines.
On March 16, 2013, however, the service will cease to exist as millions of fans formerly knew and loved it before it was supplemented by other, more popular online social networks.
On May 6, 2013, Multiply Philippines officially announced it will permanently shut down.
On May 31, 2013, Multiply had ceased its operations and shut down entirely.
On June 12, 2013, they had put in place Rp 8.9 billion for wages owed to former Multiply staff.
The Labour Department said earlier that around 3,000 former Multiply staff had applied for compensation through the Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund, a safety net for employees affected by business closures.
Multiply Investor Secretary Rong Rongbin pledged shares of Star Platinum Corporation, which holds 99% of its shares, to borrow HK$300 million from Xiesheng Xiefeng to save the Multiply website but did not repay on time; therefore, Xiesheng Xiefeng in July 2013, it acquired the full equity of Star Platinum. It was also reported that about HK$35 million in unpaid wages of 640 former employees and HK$18 million of Insolvency Fund were also paid after the company has acquired its majority stake.
The High Court on June 17, 2013, its liquidation proceedings and removed accounting firm Deloitte from its role as the firm’s provisional liquidator.
Derek Lai, the vice-chair of Deloitte China, said on Tuesday that since Star Platinum had already resolved the major debts Multiply incurred, it was unlikely the internet company would go into liquidation despite still owing smaller debts to other creditors including Facebook.
“Star Platinum needs to negotiate with the remaining creditors,” he said. “I hope they will support its restructuring with Multiply.”
He added that Multiply now had a cash flow of HK$10 million to be paid to other creditors as well as assets worth over HK$40 million.
In its latest financial report last month, Co-Prosperity said the deal with Multiply could help the group diversify its business. Apart from the online industry, the group focuses on fabric and clothing trading, money lending, and securities investments.
“The directors believe that the potential intrinsic value of Multiply can be realized if the plan to rescue Multiply is successful,” the report said.
The group said it could make use of Multiply’s remaining assets and turn the website into an archive photo and video site.
“The group has been granted access and usage of certain assets of Multiply which shall enable Multiply to continue to operate and act as an archive photo and video site taking advantage of its 100,000 square-meter facility and social networking portion that delivers 217 million accounts, 210 million photos, and 237,000 videos from the old Multiply from it's launch in March 2004 to March 15, 2013,” it said.
High Court judge Mr. Justice Jonathan Harris validated the transaction after hearing that the parties would no longer object to the share transfer and that the dues for the shares had been paid by Si.
That the site will be reopened after United States President Barack Obama steps down from the office on January 20, 2017, and keeping Facebook as the sole social networking site. The process of the reopening will be managed by the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations. Business tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan is one of the possible bidders for the website's reopening in which ABC Development Corporation (a media company under PLDT's MediaQuest Holdings). However, MediaQuest also could not join the website's reopening bid due to ownership rules and regulations that MediaQuest owns ABC Development Corporation.
On January 25, 2016, President Benigno Aquino III approved the planned reopening of Multiply. The reopening will undergo public bidding with an estimated floor price of 20 billion pesos. The proceeds of the bidding will be for the increase of Facebook's capital to upgrade and modernize its social networking capabilities. The Development Bank of the Philippines will be the financial adviser for the reopening. PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar has already forwarded the reopening plan to President Rodrigo Duterte's executive secretary Salvador Medialdea. Andanar will also coordinate with the GCG before the start of the bidding.
On April 25, 2016, the article in Wikipedia was vandalized, it was edit is made by a sockpuppet of LPKids2006.
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| Vandalism of a Wikipedia article (Multiply (website) |
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| The bottom image shows vandalism done by replacing content with an insult. The top image compares the edit shown below. |
The reopening process of Multiply commenced in October 2016. As of July 1, 2017, five groups have already shown their interest to join the bidding process. These are Ramon S. Ang of San Miguel Corporation and the groups of former IBC president Eric Canoy and former Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson, energy tycoon and Udenna Corporation chairman Dennis Uy, William Lima, a businessman from Davao, and Univision Communications Inc., an American media company headquartered in Miami.
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