Eco World International IPO oversubscribed by nine times

PETALING JAYA: Property developer Eco World International Bhd’s (EWI) initial public offering (IPO) has been oversubscribed nine times by institutional investors and by 8.87 times for the public portion, according to a press release by the Malaysian Issuing House Sdn Bhd.

The final price for both the institutional and retail offering was fixed at RM1.20 involving a public flotation of 2.153 billion shares on the stock exchange.

Commenting on the response toward the IPO, EWI president and chief executive officer Datuk Teow Leong Seng said: “We are overwhelmed by the strong support and interest we have received for the IPO from both institutional and retail investors.

“This gives us the best possible start as a newly listed entity – the faith and confidence which our investors have placed in us will definitely spur us on to grow our business and scale to greater heights post-listing.”

He noted that EWI’s existing projects in London and Sydney were performing well and as of Jan 31, the company had secured total sales of RM6.49bil.

EWI’s IPO will be the largest in Malaysia since June 2015 and the institutional offering involves an issuance of up to 449.46 million IPO shares that will be determined by way of book building and will be allocated accordingly.

About 212.4 million IPO shares were taken up by three cornerstone investors: Permodalan Nasional Bhd, the Retirement Fund Inc, and the Employees Provident Fund which represents 47.3% of the institutional offering and 8.9% of the enlarged issued and paid-up share capital of EWI.

The remaining 237.06 million IPO shares will be allocated to Malaysian and foreign institutional and selected investors.

Under the retail portion, 408 million IPO shares were allocated in the following manner: 120 million IPO shares were reserved for application by eligible EWI persons and eligible Eco World Development Group Bhd persons.

A total of 240 million IPO shares are for application by the entitled shareholders of EW Bhd via restricted offering and a further 48 million IPO shares are reserved for application by the Malaysian public via balloting.

“The IPO shares reserved for the entitled shareholders of EW Bhd was fully subscribed and a total of 23,568 applications for 473.66 million IPO shares were received from the public, representing an oversubscription rate of 8.87 times,” MIH said in the press release.

It also said that following the terms in the prospectus, some 21.8 million IPO shares that were initially reserved for eligible EWI persons and eligible EW Bhd persons were made available to the public.

As an incentive, EWI will issue to all of its shareholders two free warrants for every five shares held after the IPO and such bonus issue of warrants will be completed prior to the listing.

CIMB Investment Bank Bhd and Maybank Investment Bank Bhd are joint principal advisers, joint global coordinators, joint bookrunners, joint managing underwriters and joint underwriters.

While Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd is a joint principal adviser, joint bookrunner, joint managing underwriter and joint underwriter. UOB Kay Hian Securities (M) Sdn Bhd is a joint bookrunner.

Alliance Investment Bank Bhd, AmInvestment Bank Bhd and RHB Investment Bank Bhd are joint underwriters.