The plantation owner, Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd, is Malaysia’s largest, and its IPO is projected to raise as much as $3.2bn, boosting the ex-China Southeast Asian market’s image as an IPO hot spot, Bloomberg and other media organisations reported yesterday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the IPO has attracted interest equal to “more than 30 times the shares available for institutional investors, defying a global market rout in new-share sales”.
State-run Felda produces palm oil and rubber, two of Malaysia’s largest commodity exports after oil.
“With IPO markets worldwide roiled by Facebook’s plunging value and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, Felda Global and IHH Healthcare Bhd are pushing ahead with deals,” Bloomberg reported.
“Companies that went public in Southeast Asia since the start of last year have outperformed IPO stocks globally, helping bolster confidence in the region’s equity capital markets as China’s and India’s economies cool.”
The Felda IPO comes a little less than three months after another major Southeast Asian IPO, that of a Thai property fund launched by Tesco, the UK retailer. As reported, it was the biggest IPO in Thailand since 2006, and Asia’s second-largest at that point in 2012.
The first largest Asian IPO thus far this year, until Felda, was that of a Philippine company, GT Capital Holdings Inc.
According to Bloomberg, Tesco Lotus shares have gained 18% since the public offering, while those in GT Capital have risen 5.7%.
Qatar Holding ‘cornerstone investor’
Last month Reuters reported that Qatar Holding, Qatari sovereign wealth fund entity, was rumoured to be among the IPO’s cornerstone investors, which, it said, would make it the first Middle Eastern SWF to act as a cornerstone investor in a Malaysian IPO.
Other expected major investors were said to include Louis Dreyfus, Fidelity Investments, Hong Kong-based Value Partners and AIA Group.
