Big debut for Gas M’sia

Best time to go for IPO since market just like death fish. !! I will be going for this IPO giving an indicative IPO price of RM2.50.

PETALING JAYA: MMC Corp Bhd's subsidiary Gas Malaysia Sdn Bhd could debut on Bursa Malaysia in a very substantial initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Analysts said Gas Malaysia's IPO could raise anywhere from RM650mil to RM750mil, making it one of the largest IPOs of the year.

Reuters quoted sources with direct knowledge of the IPO as saying MMC was looking to raise up to RM750mil from the listing of Gas Malaysia. The newswire said MMC was looking to float about 333.8 million shares, which priced the IPO shares indicatively at about RM2.50 per share.

“The IPO is likely to garner attention of large institutional investors given its size and dominant position in the gas industry. There's also a sheer diversity of companies being listed this year, which gives investors a better choice to diversify their portfolios,” an analyst said.

However, analysts said the impact of Gas Malaysia's listing on MMC would depend on the IPO price and funds raised.

OSK Research said while the demand for gas remained strong despite a potential global slowdown, the cut in its margins after gas was repriced effective June 1 meant that Gas Malaysia's costs would be lower going forward.

“This IPO is a defensive stock as it is meant to free up cash for MMC. Our fair value would only be raised if an IPO price of RM1.06 per share is exceeded during the book building. For now, we tweak our forecasts down but keep our sum of parts fair value intact at RM3.58,” the research house said.

“While the institutional price has yet to be decided by the book-building exercise, we have a discounted cashflow value of RM1.36bil for Gas Malaysia, or an indicative price of RM1.06 per Gas Malaysia share,” it said, adding that MMC would strive to secure a better pricing in its IPO.

At this valuation, MMC would raise RM147.9mil from its 10.87% stake sale, OSK said.

“If MMC does secures at least this valuation for Gas Malaysia, it will be neutral to our sum of parts fair value for MMC as the cash raised will just offset the drop in effective stake from 41.8% to 30.9%,” OSK said.

“After the recent selldown on global uncertainties, MMC looks very attractive and the IPO announcement should serve as a positive catalyst,” it added.

On Tuesday, MMC, together with the other shareholders of Gas Malaysia, proposed to list the latter in an exercise that is due for completion by the fourth quarter of this year.

MMC-Shapadu (Holdings) Sdn Bhd has a 55% stake in Gas Malaysia, Tokyo Gas-Mitsui & Co (Holdings) Sdn Bhd has 25% and Petronas Gas Bhd 20%.

MMC told Bursa Malaysia yesterday that the listing would involve the sub-division of one existing Gas Malaysia share of RM1,000 each into 2,000 shares of 50 sen each, increasing the paid-up capital from 642,000 shares to 1.284 billion shares.

MMC said Gas Malaysia would issue to Petroliam Nasional Bhd one special rights redeemable preference share at an issue price of 50 sen.

The shareholders comprising MMC-Shapadu, Tokyo Gas-Mitsui and Petronas Gas would then offer for sale 333.84 million Gas Malaysia shares or 26% of the paid-up capital of Gas Malaysia. There would not be any issue of new Gas Malaysia shares.

The conglomerate said 147.678 million shares or 11.5% would be offered to bumiputra institutional and selected investors and 155.820 million shares or 12.14% to Malaysian institutional and selected investors.

The price to be paid by institutional investors pursuant to the offering was to be determined on a date by way of a bookbuilding exercise, MMC said.

Under the retail offering, the vendors proposed to offer 30.342 million shares (2.36% of the issued and paid-up capital), of which 25.68 million shares (2%) would be offered to Malaysian citizens, companies, co-operatives, societies and institutions.

MMC said based on the number of Gas Malaysia shares to be retained by MMC-Shapadu upon completion of the proposed IPO, its interest would be diluted from 41.80% to 30.93%.

Analysts said the stock could attract institutional investors' interest to any flotation of Gas Malaysia given its steady business, positive cashflow and protected margins.