KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — RHB Investment Bank, Malaysia’s fourth-largest bank, is confident of securing a major role in the planned initial public offering of telecom firm Maxis Bhd, a top official said today.
Maxis, Malaysia’s largest mobile network operator by market share, said last month it plans to offer 2.25 billion shares or 30 per cent of its existing share capital in the IPO, one of Southeast Asia’s largest this year..
“It will be a meaningful role,” Rafidz Rasiddi, head of RHB’s investment banking division, told Reuters in an interview at a capital markets conference organised by International Financing Review (IFR).
Rafidz declined to elaborate on the role the bank will play but he said RHB, part of RHB Capital, expects to be given the mandate “soon”.
UBS, JPMorgan and Nomura have been hired as co-bookrunners for the IPO and joined Goldman Sachs, CIMB and Credit Suisse, which were earlier appointed as joint bookrunners and global coordinators for the share offer.
Maxis’s listing, which will house the Malaysian mobile business, is likely to take place next month, he said.
The offering comes about two years after Maxis was taken private in a deal worth more than RM30 billion by its reclusive Malaysian billionaire owner, Ananda Krishnan, who owns telecom assets in India and Indonesia.
Of the 2.25 billion shares, 27.7 per cent will be offered to institutional investors and the remaining to retail investors, according to a draft prospects posted on the market regulator’s website on September 18.
It did not provide any terms or price of the share offer, but two sources told Reuters in August the IPO would raise US$2 billion (RM6.87 billion).
Turning to dealflows in Malaysia, Rafidz said M&A and fund-raising activities will pick up significantly in the first half of next year.
“Our clients are looking to next year. With Maxis done and dusted, you should see a lot more activities in 2010,” he said. — Reuters
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