Bursa to introduce SME market in Q2

Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Tajuddin Atan said the higher earnings in the 9 months were due to the resilient performance of the Securities Market which was supported by continued growth in the Derivatives Market and Islamic Capital Market.

KUALA LUMPUR: The new small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market on Bursa Malaysia is expected to be introduced in the second quarter of the year.

Bursa Malaysia Bhd CEO Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan said that the exchange is in the midst of obtaining the necessary approvals for the SME market.

“We hope that with the introduction of this SME market, it will help boost the dwindling performance of initial public offerings (IPOs).

“This market is targeted towards investors who are high net worth individuals,” said Tajuddin after speaking at Invest ASEAN 2017 today.

Last year, there were only a total of 12 IPOs in the market, and this figure has been on the downtrend since 2010.

SMEs make up some 98.5% of companies in Malaysia and contribute more than 30% to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The government aims to boost SMEs’ GDP contribution to 41% by 2020, as part of its SME Masterplan for the years 2012 to 2020.

Tajuddin added that the government’s small and mid-cap research scheme is well underway.

The research scheme that will see equity research houses conducting research on 300 small and mid-cap companies, is aimed at democratising information for both institutional and retail investors alike.

During the same event, Maybank Investment Bank Bhd disclosed that it has a total of 112 companies under its research coverage.

From this total, 29% are small-cap while 24% are mid-cap companies.

Small and mid-cap companies are defined as those who have a market capitalisation of below RM4bil.