Jeffrey Liu

A Conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Liu, President and CEO of Infinova

  • Jan 13, 2011
Video surveillance system manufacturer Infinova put up its IPO on the Chinese stock exchange in December. We talked with CEO Dr. Jeffrey Liu about why the company chose China and what Infinova plans to do with the $300 million it raised in the sale.

Q. Why has Infinova decided to place its IPO on the Chinese stock exchange rather than the NYSE?

A. The Initial Public Offering was placed on the Chinese Stock Exchange because it is one of the top IPO markets globally – PricewaterhouseCoopers expects to see $60 billion raised in China in 2011.

The other short answer is that it would allow us to raise more money. As we have offices and sales throughout the world, we are in the position where we could choose the stock exchange that would let us raise the most money. Most will acknowledge that the United States is a tough place to raise capital now. In contrast to IPO markets throughout the world, the Chinese IPO market is very strong, and so that’s why we chose to list the company there.


Q. What does Infinova plan to do with the capital that the IPO will raise?

A. Infinova will use the $300 million to grow both organically and through complementary acquisitions. This includes expanding our global sales network, advancing global marketing to strengthen the Infinova brand, and continuing research and development to bring more video technology breakthroughs. We recently had product announcements for H.264 products at ASIS and, in April at ISC West, we will announce our family of ONVIF-compliant products.

We are also starting to look for suitable technology companies to form partnerships and alliances that will advance Infinova solutions and the acquisition of manufacturing and distribution companies to grow our market share.

We have more than 290 R&D engineers, meaning our channel partners will be able to continue to expand their businesses knowing that we will respond. From a marketing point of view, we plan to strengthen our position as “the integrator’s manufacturer,” so we can even better support our integrators and partners by delivering video systems that meet their customers’ needs.

Q. Does your company have its eye on expanding its presence in the Chinese market? Where do you see the biggest opportunities for growth?

A. We look forward to expanding our presence in all markets, including China. Of course, China is growing very rapidly and we fully intend to leverage our presence in China. However, interestingly for Infinova, we are seeing about the same rate of growth in all areas of the world: North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia, both in and out of China.

 
Q. Your company is widely known for products that smooth the transition from analog to IP video. How do you see that transition proceeding in the next year?

A. We look forward to helping Infinova integrators help their customers migrate efficiently from analog to digital solutions in the most cost-effective way. Many times, too many compromises must be made when end users find that they must scrap their analog control room equipment when it is not yet fully depreciated.

For this reason, Infinova has created products and programs that help integrators enable their customers to move to IP as budgets and requirements dictate while also extending the life of their existing analog surveillance systems.


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