KUALA LUMPUR (March 14): The Securities Commission (SC) approved five initial public offerings (IPOs) for the Main Market last year with total funds approved to be raised estimated at RM4.87 billion.

This was up from the three IPO applications approved in 2017 with amounts to be raised totalling RM3.77 billion, it said in its 2018 annual report.

The aggregate market capitalisation of the approved IPOs was RM14.19 billion last year.

The SC said in 2017, it received 11 equity applications in 2018, of which eight were for IPOs and three were for transfer of listings.

A total of nine equity applications were considered in 2018, but one was withdrawn and four have been carried forward to 2019.

There were 11 new listings for 2018, of which two were on the Main Market and the rest were on the ACE Market.

The total amount of funds raised from these new listings was about RM0.61 billion.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian corporate bonds and sukuk market reported total issuance of RM105.45 billion in 2018, a 15.56% drop from RM124.88 billion issued in 2017. 

There was an overall decline in the maturity profile of ringgit-denominated corporate bonds and sukuk approved by/lodged with the SC in 2018.

The maturity profile of ringgit-denominated corporate bonds and sukuk with tenures of one to seven years exhibited a 14.29% decrease, while the total number of ringgit-denominated corporate bonds and sukuk with the tenures of eight to 15 years saw a 37.50% decrease.

There was also a 25.71% decrease in the total number of ringgit-denominated corporate bonds and sukuk with tenures of more than 15 years which included nine issuances with perpetual maturities.

In 2018, the SC considered 72 applications under the Rules on Takeovers, Mergers and Compulsory Acquisitions compared to 94 applications in 2017.

A total of 18 offer documents were cleared by the SC in 2018, involving a total offer value of RM7.32 billion, or an average of RM406.57 million per offer.

The total offer value for 2018 represented an increase of RM3.84 billion against the previous year, and is recorded as the highest total offer value for take-overs under the Malaysian Code on Takeovers and Mergers 2016 in the past five years (2017: 24 offers with total offer value of RM3.48 billion).

Four take-over offers were undertaken by way of schemes in 2018, representing 22% of the total number of offers (2017: seven schemes or 29%).

The largest offer for the year was in relation to Unisem (M) Bhd, which involved RM1.817 billion in offer value and constituted 25% of the total offer value for 2018. — Bernama