Books open for Malaysia's MR DIY's $362 million IPO, to list on October 26

KUALA LUMPUR:Malaysian home improvement retailer MR DIY Group opened the books for its 1.5 billion ringgit ($361.71 million) initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday, the country's largest listing in three years.

The company fixed the offer price at 1.60 ringgit per share, giving it an estimated market capitalisation of 10 billion ringgit. The bookbuild period will last seven working days, before pricing on Oct. 14 and listing on Oct. 26.

MR DIY joins a number of other Southeast Asian companies planning IPOs this year, including Thailand's Siam Cement Group Packaging and Philippines' Converge ICT Solutions Inc, a trend that signals an uptick in fundraising activity on the region's underperforming markets.

The MR DIY listing is on track to be the largest in Malaysia since Lotte Chemical Titan raised 3.77 billion ringgit in July 2017.

MR DIY is offering up to 941.5 million shares, representing around 15% of its enlarged issued share capital.

Of the institutional offering, 14 cornerstone investor groups will be acquiring 3.7% of the enlarged issued shares, a term sheet showed.

Reuters earlier reported that cornerstone investors included BlackRock Inc, AIA Group Ltd and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, citing sources.

Most of the IPO proceeds would be used for repayment of bank borrowings, the document said.

The value of Southeast Asian IPOs so far this year is $4.6 billion, up from $3.1 billion a year ago, Refinitiv data shows, mainly due to $3 billion raised by Thailand's Central Retail in February.