Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Fad’l Mohamed.
PETALING JAYA: Bursa Malaysia Bhd
has lowered its 2025 profit target by 15% as the nine-month results came in slightly below market expectations, with its net profit shaved by more than one-fifth.
The stock exchange operator has also cut its target for this year’s initial public offering (IPO) market capitalisation by 37%, at a time when net foreign fund withdrawals from local equities have crossed RM18bil in just 10 months.
In a bourse filing, Bursa Malaysia said its net profit fell by 21.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM189.3mil for the nine months of financial year 2025 (9M25).
This was despite the stronger trading activity in the third quarter.
At RM189.3mil, this represents 71% of consensus’ full-year estimate as per Bloomberg data.
The bottom line shrunk as a result of a 10.4% y-o-y drop in operating revenue to RM518.1mil, following the poor market sentiment from reciprocal tariff-related uncertainties earlier this year.
In 9M25, the securities market’s trading revenue fell by a quarter as the average daily trading value (ADV) for on-market trades dropped by 25.6% y-o-y to RM2.5bil.
Total operating expenses rose by 3.5% to RM282.8mil in the nine months, largely led by higher information technology maintenance costs and other operating expenses.
The derivatives market’s trading revenue rose by 2.8% to RM83.1mil, mainly due to higher volumes of crude palm oil futures contracts traded.
On the Islamic market front, operating revenue recorded a 30% jump to RM16.9mil in 9M25, led by higher Bursa Suq Al-Sila’ (BSAS) trading revenue.
BSAS is a commodity trading platform specifically dedicated to facilitate Islamic liquidity management and financing by Islamic financial institutions.
According to chief executive officer Datuk Fad’l Mohamed, local market sentiment took a beating in 9M25 due to the unfavourable global developments that led to lower ADV.
“However, we are beginning to see improvement as greater clarity emerged from the United States tariff negotiations, with securities market trading revenue in the third quarter of financial year 2025 (3Q25) rising 13.3% quarter-on-quarter.”
In view of the shifting global developments and its influence on market sentiment – particularly on the equity market during the first half of financial year 2025 – Bursa Malaysia made revisions to its headline key performance indicators (KPI) for this year.
The KPI for pre-tax profit is now set between RM314mil and RM347mil, compared to the previous range of RM369mil to RM408mil.
The KPI for total IPO market capitalisation has been revised to RM25.2bil, from RM40.2bil previously.
That said, the Malaysian stock exchange has maintained its lead in Asean in terms of number of IPOs.
All other headline KPIs remain unchanged.
For 3Q25, Bursa Malaysia’s revenue was down 14.8% y-o-y to RM179.9mil, while net profit fell 25.5% to RM63.8mil.
In an earlier note, Affin Hwang Investment Bank Research had forecast Bursa Malaysia to deliver a “strong sequential rebound”, with an estimated net profit of RM70mil in the third quarter.
It also projected a revenue of RM189mil.
Speaking with StarBiz, BIMB Research director of research Mohd Redza Abdul Rahman said the third-quarter trading data indicated a “good baseline” for Bursa Malaysia’s market activities.
On an average basis, over three billion shares were traded daily in the July to Sept 2025 period, with a daily trading value of above RM2.5bil.
As for the rest of the year, Mohd Redza said the robustness of trading activities will partly hinge on major index rebalancing exercises and the third-quarter earnings reporting to be concluded in November.
“We will see two major index rebalancing exercises in the 4Q25 – MSCI in November and FTSE Bursa Malaysia family, including the FBM KLCI.”
