CIMB slips on news of proposed stake sale by Khazanah

CIMB Group Holdings Bhd is said to be hiring Rafe Haneef from HSBC Amanah Malaysia Bhd to lead its Islamic banking unit.

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd fell to a low of RM6.14 early Tuesday as investors reacted to news about Khazanah Nasional’s plans to sell a stake at between RM6.13 and RM6.24.

At 9.41am, it was down eight sen to RM6.16. There were 4.83 million shares done at prices ranging from RM6.14 to RM6.21.

The FBM KLCI fell 1.08 points or 0.06% to 1,753.29. Turnover was 644.83 million shares valued at RM227.11mil. There were 220 gainers, 212 losers and 301 counters unchanged.

StarBiz reported the sovereign wealth fund, which is the largest shareholder in the banking group, is testing investors’ appetite for the banking stock with an offer for sale of CIMB shares worth at least RM550mil.

Shares in CIMB had surged 38% year to date.

The move by Khazanah came barely a month after Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) sold its entire 4.6% block of shares in CIMB for about RM2.6bil.

Bankers said Khazanah has put up to 90.521 million CIMB shares for sale.

The accelerated book-building exercise yielded interest ranging from RM6.13 to RM6.24 per share.

The deal is valued at a maximum discount of 1.763% of CIMB’s share price close yesterday of RM6.24.

Prior to the sale, Khazanah owned about 2.55 billion shares in CIMB, which gave it a 29.3% control of the lender. 

StarBiz quoted observers saying Khazanah is taking advantage of the strong appetite for CIMB’s shares following the successful stake sale by MUFG in September.

MUFG’s unit , the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, had sold its entire stake of 412.5 million CIMB shares through an overnight block trade.

It was reported that foreign fund managers mostly bought over this stake from MUFG.

CIMB then said in a statement that the divestment was part of MUFG’s strategic global master plan which included a review of its portfolio of existing investment in affiliates.

“Notwithstanding the divestment, both MUFG and CIMB would maintain their current collaboration founded on a mutually beneficial 40-year partnership,” the bank added.

The stake sale which happened on Sept 20 had dampened sentiment in CIMB then with its shares falling to a one-month low of RM6.14 or a decline of some 11% from its one-month peak.