Glove maker Harps Holdings to launch IPO

KUALA LUMPUR: Glove maker Harps Holdings Bhd is issuing 2.6 billion shares consisting of institutional offering and retail offering for its proposed initial public offering (IPO) on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia.

This represents 26% of its enlarged issued capital, according to its prospectus exposure on the Securities Commission website.

The institutional offering involves the offering of up to 2.3 billion IPO shares, representing up to 23.00% of its issued share capital.

Harps said 1.15 billion shares, representing 11.5% its its issued share capital will be for Bumiputera investors approved by the MITI.

The retail offering involves the offering of 300 million IPO shares, representing 3.00% of its issued share capital.

The issue price has yet to be fixed, according to its prospectus exposure.

Harps is principally an investment holding company with two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Central Medicare and New Era Medicare.

Central Medicare is engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of examination gloves while New Era Medicare is engaged in research and development, manufacturing and distribution of surgical gloves.

Harps currently has one manufacturing facility in Malaysia and as at Dec 31 had 32 production lines and a total annual installed capacity of 8.2 billion gloves.

“As at Jan 31, we completed the new expansion to our manufacturing facility, increasing our production lines to 34 and our total annual installed capacity to 11.6 billion gloves.

“We intend to increase our total annual installed capacity to 19.5 billion gloves by the end of 2023 with a total of 54 production lines,” it said.

For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2020, Harps posted a profit after tax of RM514.48mil against RM37.59mil in 2019. Its revenue for the period surged to RM1.21bil from RM512.21mil previously.

Harps targets a payout ratio of up to 35% of irs profit after tax and minority interest of each financial year on a consolidated basis after taking into account working capital and maintenance capital requirements.

Maybank Investment Bank Bhd is the principal adviser and managing underwriter of the proposed listing.