But margins for the business were thin as competition was relentless. Technology was also increasingly automating what used to set players apart. So, when the opportunity to offload it surfaced earlier this year — and at a price it found hard to refuse — Zico promptly agreed to unshackle itself from a low-growth legacy.
The buyer is Singapore-headquartered Ascentium, a business services platform set up last year by two former top executives of Tricor Group and backed by private-equity firm Hillhouse Investment.
With the sale completed in July, Zico is ramping up efforts in businesses that it has all along been licensed to undertake but hasn’t yet developed to their full potential. “We are probably the most licensed entity in Singapore for the kind of work we can do. We have so many licences but we’re not fully utilising them,” Kelvin Ng, Zico’s group CEO, tells The Edge Singapore.
Having received the full balance of payment for the $10.7 million divestment in early August, the company now has greater financial means and more time to finally go all out. “I won’t say we are flushed with cash, but I think we are very comfortable now,” says Ng. Zico had just $2.9 million in cash as at June 30 this year.
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Wealth and fund management, trust and fiduciary advisory, and capital markets work fall under regulated businesses. Not only do they offer better profit margins, but they also operate in tightly regulated arenas with higher barriers to entry.
The plan, according to Ng, is to replicate in other Southeast Asian markets businesses that have proven scalable and resilient where they were first launched. “We have, for example, asset management in Singapore but not in Malaysia. We also have capital markets teams in both Singapore and Malaysia, but the Malaysia team is still fairly new. So, we want to expand that.”
Unlike in the past, when it targeted all 10 Southeast Asian markets with various multi-disciplinary services, Zico will focus only on Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand this time around, he says.
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Doubling down on capital markets
Of all the regulated businesses on its plate, capital markets work is probably the most visible for Zico. Through its subsidiary Zico Capital, the company is an accredited issue manager and full sponsor in Singapore. It’s also authorised to help businesses list on Bursa Malaysia’s Leap market, a capital-raising platform for growth-stage companies.
Beyond traditional advisory roles, Zico Capital aims to serve as a placement agent, directly connecting issuers with investors, and play a larger role in regional IPOs.
“We have a distribution licence in capital markets, but we haven’t done distribution yet. Every time we do a listing, we lose that part of the fee. And distribution fees are great, a couple per cent of millions of dollars,” says Ng.
Taking the lead in bringing companies to list on the Singapore Exchange is another target for Zico, which is a sponsor for about 20 firms on the Catalist board. “In the previous two years, we had nothing in terms of IPOs. This year, we are in talks with two or three companies to list. Better late than never. There are more in the pipeline for next year.”
Zico’s IPO slog finally bore fruit this past week. MetaOptics, a Singapore-based maker of specialised lenses used in smartphones, self-driving cars and projectors, will make its trading debut on Catalist on Sept 9. Zico is MetaOptics’ sponsor, issue manager and placement agent.
Another focal point will be Malaysia, where its partnership with Evolve Capital could prove catalytic. The Singapore-based corporate finance advisory firm bought a 10% stake in Zico Capital late last year, joining forces to support fast-growing companies through IPOs, secondary fundraising, and mergers and acquisitions.
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“At the end of the day, an IPO will only work if you get people to back you up, to fund it. We have the licence in Malaysia, we can do the listing, but we haven’t done much. Since our partnership with Evolve, which is less than a year old, we’ve done our first Leap listing in Malaysia. We have secured a couple of mandates for Nasdaq, and hopefully we’ll secure a couple more Leap listings,” Ng says.
The recent interest among some Singapore-listed companies to dual-list in Malaysia may also bode well for service providers like Zico. “In the past, it was always Malaysian companies wanting to do a dual listing in Singapore. Now, the reverse is true,” he says. Oiltek International, Q&M Dental Group and UMS Integration are among such companies.
Armed with a capital markets services licence in both Singapore and Malaysia, Zico can chase deal flow in Singapore while running a lower-cost back office in Malaysia. “Here in Singapore, you’re paying about $9 psf (in office rental), which is about RM30. In Malaysia, you pay the equivalent of $4 psf in a prime area. That’s about 50% of the cost in Singapore,” says Ng.
Active asset and wealth manager
Another area of focus for Zico is asset and wealth management. Under Zico Asset Management, high-net-worth individuals and entrepreneurs receive bespoke services, including portfolio management, retirement investing, family office advisory and tax structuring.
The goal is for Zico Asset Management to launch and manage more of its own funds, initially focusing on sectors in Singapore. Being a general partner means Zico moves beyond advisory to become a fund house in its own right, giving it control over investment strategy and allowing it to earn management and performance fees.
The size of each fund can range between $50 million and $100 million, although this can go up exponentially if the fund invests in hot sectors like deep tech and data centres, according to Ng. Shariah-compliant funds will also be made available to tap rising demand from Malaysia.
The upcoming Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone can be helpful in bringing together asset managers and those with wealth, he adds. “There are a lot of family offices that are starting up there. We would like to capitalise on that for Zico Asset Management.”
Trust advisory
Helping clients set up and manage trusts to handle high-value estate matters and protect their assets is one of Zico’s oldest businesses. While competition is keen, the company has managed to hold its own.
Assets managed by its trust business amount to about $10 billion, making Zico one of the largest independent trust service providers in the region, according to Ng. The Covid pandemic, as it turned out, played no small role in driving demand for this business.
“Post-Covid, I think people are more conscious about their lives. ‘Life is so fragile. I’d better set up a trust,’ they would say. So, there’s a lot more estate planning and so on,” he says.
Lawyering-as-a-service
Another regulated business that Zico intends to ramp up is lawyering-as-a-service. Already available in Malaysia and Thailand, the service will be rolled out in phases in Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The concept is simple but increasingly relevant: companies often need legal expertise for specific projects or transactions, but not necessarily an in-house counsel on a permanent payroll. Zico connects these companies with lawyers on demand, bridging a gap between traditional law firms and the gig economy.
The model reflects a broader shift in how professional services are consumed. Just as cloud computing allows companies to scale IT spending elastically, lawyering-as-a-service offers legal solutions that are flexible, cost-effective and scalable.
“Let’s say Singtel has six female lawyers all about to go on maternity leave. What do they do? They can hire, but it will cost them a lot of money. We have hundreds of legal consultants on our platform. We can just pick six who are experts in the telecom industry and second them to SingTel,” says Ng.
While lawyering-as-a-service now accounts for less than 10% of Zico’s overall revenue, its real value lies in opening doors for the company to cross-sell its higher-margin services in capital markets and trust advisory.
All about execution
The $10.7 million proceeds from the corporate services sale are earmarked partly for debt reduction. Zico has carried debt as part of its regional expansion in the past, and paring it down provides more breathing space. At the same time, the recycling of capital underscores management’s intent: monetise low-growth assets and redeploy into high-growth areas.
Investors will be watching how efficiently the funds are put to work. Scaling up wealth and fund management requires regulatory licences, talent acquisition and seed capital for new products, all of which take time and money. Yet the payoff, if successful, is recurring income, which is more resilient than fees from transactional corporate services.
The strategy is not without risks. Competition in wealth and capital markets is intense, with global players entrenched in Singapore and local champions strong in Malaysia and Indonesia. Regulatory hurdles also loom large, especially for cross-border fund structures.
Zico’s proposition appears to be differentiation. By offering a mix of legal, capital markets and fund management capabilities under one regional umbrella, it occupies a unique niche.
The coming years will test whether the pivot to regulated businesses can deliver both growth and stability. If it pulls it off, Zico could well be a microcosm of the broader Asean story: agile, transnational and positioned at the intersection of rising wealth and deepening capital markets.
But until then, if its current revenue trajectory persists, it may end up with yet another year of top-line stagnation and a third consecutive year of loss in 2025. Revenue for each of the last two years was $17.2 million. Revenue for 1HFY2025 ended June came in at $8.8 million, almost similar to what it made a year earlier.
