Bursa Malaysia to pursue listing
Bursa Malaysia, the Malaysian stock exchange, will proceed with an initial public offering by next March after it received final approval from shareholders at the weekend.
Bursa Malaysia would be the fourth Asia-Pacific stock exchange to be listed after Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. The move is part of a plan to liberalise the country's financial markets and attract more foreign investors.
The exchange hopes to take advantage of a recent upsurge in local share prices in launching the IPO, which would account for one-third of the exchange's shares.
It is also expected to attract more liquidity when it forms a cross-trading alliance with the Singapore Exchange by the end of next year. Bursa Malaysia's market capitalisation of US$177.8bn is less than the SGX's of US$240.3bn.
The IPO, which is being arranged by local investment bank CIMB and Switzerland-based UBS, had been threatened by a possible revolt among commission-based dealers, or remisiers, who had been unhappy with the pay-out proposals under the deal.
Bursa Malaysia had offered to distribute M$750m of its MS$1bn in cash reserves to existing shareholders, with the finance ministry, stockbrokers and the Capital Market Development Fund each holding 30 per cent.
But the 6,000 remisiers, who hold 10 per cent of Bursa Malaysia, complained that they would not receive their full allotment under the original IPO scheme. To save the deal, Bursa Malaysia agreed to reserve one-tenth of the public issue shares to the remisiers.
马来西亚证交所即将上市
马来西亚交易所(Bursa Malaysia)将在明年3月前进行首次公开上市，交易所已在周末获得股东的最终批准。
继新加坡、香港和澳大利亚后，马来西亚交易所将成为亚太地区上市的第4家证交所。此举是放开该国金融市场、吸引更多外国投资者计划的一部分。
最近，马来西亚当地股票的首次公开上市价格出现飚升，该交易所希望利用这一点来推动其上市。这些新上市股票将占交易所总股票的三分之一。
预计在明年年底前与新加坡交易所形成交叉交易联盟时，交易所还会吸引更多流动资金。马来西亚交易所交易的股票总市值为1778亿美元，低于新加坡交易所的2403亿美元。
此次首次公开发行由本地投资银行联昌国际证券银行(CIMB)和总部在瑞士的瑞士银行(UBS)承销。但佣金交易商（又称取佣经纪商）对协议制定的现金储备派发提议不满，可能加以反对，从而令这起首发受到威胁。
此前马来西亚交易所已表示，愿意向现有股东分配10亿林吉特现金储备中的7.5亿林吉特，其中财政部、股票经纪商和资本市场开发基金(Capital Market Development Fund)各持有30%。
但持有马来西亚交易所10%股份的6000家取佣经纪商抱怨说，他们将不会得到原首发方案中的足额数量分配。为了保证该交易的顺利进行，马来西亚交易所同意，为取佣经纪商保留十分之一公众股。
