Bumi Armada’s shares in high demand

A cleverly-crafted fund raising exercise, offshore oil and gas services provider Bumi Armada Bhd’s initial public offering (IPO) has created an “artificially high demand” for the company’s shares amongst institutional investors in lieu of its flotation onto the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia this month, analysts and market observes say.

Market talk has been rife that Bumi Armada’s IPO has garnered strong interest from foreign and local institutional investors, with sources disclosing that the company saw its institutional offer 5.6 times oversubscribed on the first day its bookbuilding exercise, which had commenced on June 28 and is scheduled to close next Friday before the institutional price is determined on July 11.