MANILA, Philippines – Publicly listed firm IPVG Corp. is putting a halt to its acquisition spree this year given the expected economic crunch, its top executive told INQUIRER.net.

IPVG has subsidiaries engaged in business process outsourcing, online gaming, telecoms and data center services.

In 2008, IPVG acquired US-based call center operator Influent and mobile developer MegaMobile.

IPVG also announced a $355 million bid to acquire operator PeopleSupport, but was turned down last year.

Around five years old, IPVG has grown primarily through mergers and acquisitions with foreign and local firms.

"We're adopting a different strategy this year," said IPVG chief executive Enrique Gonzales. "Credit markets are tight, not a good time to raise capital so we're looking at maintaining profitability."

IPVG reported P1.7 billion in total revenues for the first half of the year.

Gonzales said the company is on track to reach its P3.3 billion target for 2008.

The online gaming industry in the US, according to him, is still growing. Locally, he expects the market to grow by as much as 30 percent.

"Our data center is not affected that much since a lot of our clients are Asian companies," Gonzalez said. "Internet user growth in Asia is among the highest in the world and that would drive the need for secure hosting environments."