WMG Holdings makes firm debut on Main Market at 50 sen

Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, aims to raise as much as US$500mil (RM2.13bil) in an IPO on Bursa Malaysia.

KUALA LUMPUR: Property company WMG Holdings Bhd made a firm debut on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia on Monday, opening at 50 sen, which was two sen over the IPO price of 48 sen.

At 9.03am, it was trading at 50 sen with 40,000 shares done.

The FBM KLCI fell 0.41 points or 0.02% to 1,766.67. Turnover was 76 million shares valued at RM24.75mil. There were 104 gainers, 69 losers and 170 counters unchanged.

WMG took over the listing status of Tekala Corporation Bhd following the completion of a restructuring scheme.

In December 2015, Tekala directors had come out with a rescue plan – to go into property development and scale down its loss-making timber business.

Tekala had been posting operating losses for five consecutive years up to 2015. The directors swapped their profitable personal property assets for shares in Tekala. This exercise will immediately turn around the ailing company.

The corporate exercise involved taking over the business of Sandakan-based property development company Wah Mie Group.

Wah Mie Group is among the largest housing developers in Sandakan, and has been in business for over 30 years. This means its will be a related-party transaction.

Wah Mie Group planned to inject its own property and construction assets worth RM513mil in a share-swap deal.

Under the proposed deal a special-purpose vehicle called WMG Holdings Bhd was set up to acquire the targeted assets from several private companies controlled by Tekala’s main shareholders and certain company directors.

The proposed share swap is on a basis of 133 new WMG shares for every 100 existing Tekala shares, resulting in WMG having a 56.3% equity interest in the enlarged Tekala Group.