KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — SkyWorld Development Bhd made a flat debut at its issue price of 80 sen on Bursa Malaysia’s Main Market today, with 16.43 million shares transacted.
Founder and non-independent executive chairman Datuk Seri Ng Thien Phing said the developer believed that investors would appreciate the company’s prospects and fundamentals in the future.
“In the long term, we are talking about price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 5.5 times. We are doing very well.
“So for us we don’t look at timing as nobody can tell when is the right timing. As I mentioned, we are a long-term player and want to build the company, maybe investors don’t appreciate us now but I’m sure they will in the future as we focus on creating value for the company,” he told reporters after the initial public offering (IPO) listing ceremony here, today.
Ng said the listing exercise has enabled SkyWorld to enter a bigger platform for capital raising to acquire more land and grow its business.
“The outlook of the property is still promising. The last property boom was in 2010 to 2013 and we launched our first project in 2014, where the market was on the downtrend until today.
“But SkyWorld keeps going on till today. Our take up rates are more than 98 per cent from 2014 until December 2022, meaning that the product we sell can match the market very well, thus we are doing extremely well,” he noted.
SkyWorld’s IPO entailed a public issue of 208 million new shares and an offer for the sale of 192 million existing shares at 80 sen per share.
Out of the RM166.4 million proceeds raised from the IPO, RM100 million or 60.1 per cent would be utilised to acquire land for development.
Another 21.2 per cent and 12 per cent have been earmarked for working capital for project development and repayment of bank borrowings, respectively, while the remaining 6.7 per cent would be used for IPO-related expenses.
The group aims to launch 10 new developments by 2026 and expand regionally into Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It has 22.5 hectares of landbank at present. — Bernama
