KUALA LUMPUR/HONG KONG, Oct 6 — Malaysian home improvement retailer MR DIY Group opened the books for its RM1.5 billion ringgit (US$362 million) initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday, the country’s largest listing in three years.
The company fixed the offer price at RM1.60 per share, giving it an estimated market capitalisation of RM10 billion ringgit. The bookbuild period will last seven working days, before pricing on October 14 and listing on Octover 26.
MR DIY joins a number of other Southeast Asian companies planning IPOs this year, including Thailand’s Siam Cement Group Packaging and Philippines’ Converge ICT Solutions Inc, a trend that signals an uptick in fundraising activity on the region’s underperforming markets.
The MR DIY listing is on track to be the largest in Malaysia since Lotte Chemical Titan raised RM3.77 billion in July 2017.
MR DIY is offering up to 941.5 million shares, representing around 15 per cent of its enlarged issued share capital.
Of the institutional offering, 14 cornerstone investor groups will be acquiring 3.7 per cent of the enlarged issued shares, a term sheet showed.
Reuters earlier reported that cornerstone investors included BlackRock Inc, AIA Group Ltd and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, citing sources.
Most of the IPO proceeds would be used for repayment of bank borrowings, the document said.
The value of Southeast Asian IPOs so far this year is US$4.6 billion (RM19 billion), up from US$3.1 billion (RM12.9 billion) a year ago, Refinitiv data shows, mainly due to US$3 billion (RM12.45 billion) raised by Thailand’s Central Retail in February.
— Reuters
