KUALA LUMPUR (April 11): Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd has launched Malaysia’s first-ever US initial public offering (IPO) subscription service for retail investors through its trading platform M+Global.
The service is kicking off with the IPO of Chagee Holdings Ltd, offering access to investors to subscribe to shares of the Chinese tea chain through its mobile app, the brokerage firm said in a statement. M+Global users can began subscribing to Chagee’s IPO beginning Friday.
“Starting with Chagee, we’re democratising access to premium global IPOs, enabling Malaysian qualified retail investors to invest affordably and confidently on the international stage for the very first time,” said Lim Chia Wei, managing director of M+Global.
US IPOs usually do not come with offerings to the average retail investors, and the shares are usually reserved by underwriters and dealers to their institutional clients, such as hedge funds, and select high net-worth individuals.
Common individual investors have to purchase the shares when they are resold in the market, following the IPO.
As part of the underwriting or selling groups, M+Global said it would secure IPO shares directly from listing companies, and offer them exclusively to its clients.
Chagee is seeking to raise US$411 million (RM1.82 billion) in an IPO on Nasdaq, priced at US$26 to US$28 per share, according to its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At the top end of the range, Chagee could have a market capitalisation of US$3.3 billion.