DANAVEST

(Via Business Times) Malaysian funds will buy almost half the nearly US$3 billion of stock Maxis Communications Bhd is selling in the country’s biggest initial public offering, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Local investors that will buy shares of Malaysia’s largest mobile-phone carrier include the nation’s biggest pension fund, the Employees Provident Fund, the person said, declining to be identified. Maxis, run by billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan, will start marketing the sale on Oct. 23, the person said.

Maxis’s IPO will raise more than double the previous record in Malaysia, set by Petronas Gas Bhd’s offering in 1995. Maxis was among the country’s four biggest companies by market capitalization before Krishnan, 71, took it private in 2007 in a RM16 billion (US$1.7 billion) transaction.

Only the Malaysian operations of Maxis are included in the IPO, the person said. The company aims to complete the offering by mid-November, the person said.
Catherine Leong, a Maxis spokeswoman, declined to comment. Azlan Zainol, chief executive officer of the Employees Provident Fund, was unavailable for comment, according to his secretary.

Maxis plans to sell as many as 2.25 billion shares in the offering, it said in a draft prospectus published last month, without disclosing how much money would be raised. The Kuala Lumpur-based company will reserve 174.8 million shares for the public and customers, with the rest going to institutional investors and indigenous ethnic groups, according to the draft prospectus.

CIMB Investment Bank Bhd is the principal adviser for the offering while Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are joint global coordinators and book-runners.

Maxis had 11.4 million mobile-phone subscribers as of June 30, giving it a 40 per cent market share in Malaysia, according to the initial prospectus. The company reported RM4.24 billion ringgit of revenue in the six months to June 30.

Maxis first sold shares in Malaysia in 2002. Before the company was taken private in June 2007, it was valued at about RM40 billion on the Malaysian stock exchange. (Bloomberg)