Malaysian funds expected to grab at least 50% of Maxis IPO

Malaysian news source, the Business Times, citing an individual with knowledge of the matter, suggests that local investors are likely to snap up almost half of the USD3 billion stock made available as part of the initial public offering (IPO) from Maxis Communications. With Maxis preparing to start the marketing of the IPO on 23 October, it is understood that investors including the country’s largest pension fund, the Employees Provident Fund, are planning to invest in the company. In the draft prospectus for the offer, the company has said that it will reserve 174.8 million shares for the public and customers, with the rest going to institutional investors and indigenous ethnic groups. Maxis’s IPO is expected to raise more than double the previous record in Malaysia, which was set by Petronas Gas’s offering in 1995, despite only the Malaysian operations of Maxis being included in the IPO. The IPO is expected to be complete by mid-November.