KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is to launch a new $2 billion public offering of its state-run IHH Healthcare, the region's largest private hospital operator, on Tuesday the country's Prime Minister Najib Razak said in an effort to boost the country's status as Asia's best IPO destination. According to reports, citing the PM's office, the IHH sale of shares come after the $3 billion listing of palm oil firm Felda Global Ventures last week, the world's largest IPO after Facebook. Prime Minister Razak will release the IPO prospectus at an event in the Malaysian capital, continuing his drive to monetize state-linked assets and boost the economic feel-good factor ahead of a general election due by next March, his office was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying. IPOs in Malaysia, where the equity market is dominated by local investors and a large domestic pension fund system, have defied a trend in other financial markets such as Singapore, where motor racing firm Formula One decided to postpone its near $3 billion flotation due to volatile markets. As a result, Kuala Lumpur has been running neck-and-neck with China's Shenzhen as Asia's top IPO destination. Sovereign wealth fund the Kuwait Investment Authority, asset manager Blackrock and 20 other big “cornerstone” investors have committed to buy nearly two-thirds of the shares on offer. “The only reason I can see why Malaysian IPOs have gone ahead is simply because there is a very large institutional investor base here that is cash-rich,” said Abdul Jalil Abdul Rasheed, chief executive officer of Aberdeen Islamic Asset Management in Kuala Lumpur, to Reuters. “Malaysia is now the largest IPO market in Asia, and surely that is not sustainable. I think it's just that Malaysia is probably having some time in the sun now that other markets are quite weak.”
