Southeast Asia is weathering a slump in
initial share sales better than markets including Hong Kong, as optimism about
the region’s economic outlook draws investors to offerings in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Felda Global
(FGVH) Ventures Holdings Bhd., Malaysia’s biggest plantation owner,
will tomorrow set the price of an initial public offering that may raise as
much as $3.2 billion. The IPO, the biggest this year after Facebook Inc.’s
(FB) sale, may bring proceeds in the region to $5 billion this year,
compared with $1.4 billion in Hong Kong, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
With
IPO markets worldwide roiled by Facebook’s plunging value and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis,
Felda Global and IHH Healthcare Bhd. are pushing ahead with deals. Companies
that went public in Southeast Asia since the start of last year have
outperformed IPO stocks globally, helping bolster confidence in the region’s equity capital
markets as China’s
and India’s economies
cool.
“Southeast Asia is
becoming more visible and interesting to investors,” said Vineet Mishra,
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s head of equity capital markets for the region. “The
strength of the local economies is driving investor interest.”
Felda
Global drew orders from institutional investors for about 20 times the stock
available to them, two people with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. As
much as 10 percent of the palm oil and rubber producer’s enlarged equity
capital is available to fund managers. IHH Healthcare, Asia’s largest Hospital
operator, is gauging investor demand for a $1.9 billion IPO in Kuala Lumpur.
Felda
‘Excitement’
State-owned
Felda Global was the world’s third-largest oil palm plantation operator in 2011,
according to Frost & Sullivan Inc. The company is attempting Malaysia’s biggest IPO since
2010, as researcher Oil World forecasts palm oil exports will rise to a record
in the 2011-2012 season that started in October. Gas Malaysia Bhd. jumped 10
percent on its first day of trading in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
“I
haven’t seen an IPO garner so much excitement in a long, long time,” Abdul
Jalil Abdul Rasheed, who helps manage $3 billion as chief executive officer at
Aberdeen Islamic Asset Management Sdn., said of the Felda Global sale.
Even
with Felda and IHH Healthcare, the value of IPOs in Southeast Asia will trail
the $9.7 billion raised in the region in last year’s first half, data compiled
by Bloomberg show. Yet the decline will be less steep than in Hong Kong, where the value of
IPOs has tumbled 89 percent.
F1
Delay
In the
past month, Graff Diamonds Corp., China Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings
Ltd. and China Nonferrous Mining Corp. shelved IPOs in Hong Kong that might
have raised a combined $1.7 billion. Southeast Asia hasn’t been immune either:
Formula One, owner of the world’s biggest auto-racing series, last month
postponed a plan to raise as much as $3 billion in Singapore. Chief Executive
Officer Bernie
Ecclestone said the IPO will still take place this year.
Economic
growth in Southeast Asia may accelerate to 5.2 percent this year from 4.6
percent in 2011 amid a recovery in Thailand, according to an April forecast by
the Asian
Development Bank.
In Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, growth has
topped 6 percent for six straight quarters as investments in industries such as
mining increased. While Malaysia’s expansion slowed to 4.7 percent in the first
three months from 5.2 percent the previous quarter, central bank Governor Zeti
Akhtar Aziz said June 7 that “very robust” consumption and private investment
will support the economy.
China
Concerns
At the
same time, China and India are losing steam. China cut borrowing
costs on June 7 for the first time in three years after five straight
quarters of slowing growth. India’s expansion has eased to almost a decade-low.
“At
this point in time when people are generally more concerned about China, you’re
not likely to get much of a deal flow from Hong Kong,” said Lee King Fuei,
Singapore-based fund
managerat Schroders Plc, which oversees about $326 billion. “In Southeast
Asia, there’s more diversity in economies and government policies.”
The 133
companies that went public in Southeast Asia since the start of 2011 have
fallen an average 5.1 percent from their offer prices, compared with a 10.4
percent drop for IPOs worldwide and a 9.6 percent decline for the rest of the
Asia- Pacific region, according to Bloomberg data weighted by deal size. In
Hong Kong, new stocks lost an average of 13 percent in the same period.
Tesco
Lotus Deal
Thailand,
whose economy was ravaged in 2011 by the worst floods in almost 70 years,
boasts the largest IPO completed so far in 2012 in the Asia-Pacific region. Tesco Lotus
Retail Growth Freehold & Leasehold Property Fund (TLGF), controlled by
Tesco Plc’s Thai unit, raised 18.4 billion baht ($580 million) in March in the
country’s biggest IPO since 2006.
In
second place is a Philippine deal: GT Capital Holdings Inc., owned by
billionaire George Ty, raised 18.8 billion pesos ($435 million) in April in
that country’s fourth-largest IPO ever. Tesco Lotus shares have advanced 18
percent since its IPO, while GT Capital is up 5.7 percent from its offer price.
“Despite
a slowdown in equity markets elsewhere around the region, we expect to see
continued activity in the Southeast Asian IPO markets for the remainder of the
year,” said Ashok Pandit, co-head of Asia equity capital markets at Deutsche
Bank AG, the No.1 underwriter of Southeast Asian IPOs last year according to
Bloomberg data.
Joyce
Koh and Fox Hu
Business & Investment Opportunities
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