Felda closed Wednesday at 5.50 ringgit (£1.11, $1.73). It had its debut on the Bursa Malaysia on 28 June at 4.55 ringgit, meaning investors who got in at the beginning have seen a 21% gain in their investment in less than two weeks.
Felda’s rise, though not one of the day’s biggest gainers, helped to send the Kuala Lumpur FBM KLCI to a record close of 1,629.
As reported, the Felda Global IPO had been seen as boosting the ex-China Southeast Asian market’s image as a hot place to list a company, particularly since much of the demand was said to have come from domestic investors.
Felda produces palm oil and rubber, two of Malaysia’s largest commodity exports after oil. Foreign observers who commented on the interest in the company’s IPO noted that Malaysian investors had not been affected as badly as those in many other major markets.
The Felda IPO came a little less than three months after another major Southeast Asian IPO, that of a Thai property fund launched by Tesco, the UK retailer, which ended up being the biggest IPO in Thailand since 2006, and Asia’s second-largest at that point in 2012.
The largest Asian IPO thus far this year, until Felda, was that of a Philippine company, GT Capital Holdings Inc.
The No. 1 IPO of the year globally was that of Facebook in the US on 18 May, which had its debut at $38 a share, but which closed on Tuesday at $31.47, down 17% since its flotation.
