Malaysia palm oil giant Felda Global Ventures Holdings will raise $3.12 billion in the second-largest public offering this year, as it announced its final share prices Friday Felda is selling a total of 2.19 billion shares, the majority of which, or 1.92 billion, will go to institutional investors. The listing is scheduled for June 28.
The price for the institutional portion of the share issue was set at 4.55 ringgit ($1.43) per share, Felda said in a statement to Malaysia's stock market, at the high end of the expected range of 4.00-4.65 ringgit. The final retail price was set at 4.45 ringgit, it said, offering a 10-cent discount. The total offering will raise 9.93 billion ringgit ($3.12 billion).
The Felda IPO, which has been oversubscribed, looks to buck a gloomy outlook for new issues after Facebook's shares plummeted following its hyped-up listing last month. Felda Global is the world's third-largest oil palm plantations operator and is an arm of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda), a government agency that provides land to rural poor.
Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the listing plan in October, part of a larger push to divest state-run firms and increase foreign investment in the country. He also hopes to curry favour with the more than 112,000 settler families who own part of the plantation land and stand to get 15,000 ringgit each as a windfall from the listing, ahead of polls due by latest next April Some settlers have opposed the listing, however, concerned the scheme may expose them to more risk and potentially rob them of their land.