Nazir says an announcement will be made ‘when the time is right’

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, which had planned to list on the Thai bourse in July, now hopes to do so by the year-end.

“I will be going to Bangkok next week to have a better feel of the situation and will make an announcement when the time is right,” said chief executive officer Datuk Seri Nazir Razak.

“The objective of our listing is not about fund raising but rather for branding purposes. When doing a listing for such purpose, it is important to get adequate coverage as well as the attention of the public.

“We find the current underlying economic activities in Thailand still good despite the recent political crisis,” he told a press conference after the launch of Malaysia’s first offshore exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be listed on Bursa Malaysia.

Dato' Seri Nazir Razak

The ETFs, called CIMB FTSE ASEAN 40 Malaysia and CIMB FTSE Xinhua China 25, will be managed by CIMB-Principal Asset Management Bhd and listed on the local bourse on July 13.

ECM Libra Research analyst Bernard Ching told StarBiz that CIMB’s listing in Thailand bode well for the group, both in commercial but investment banking, and was in line with the group’s aspiration to become a regional bank.

A banking analyst with an investment bank said that while he felt the situation in Thailand remained uncertain, he concurred CIMB’s move would be beneficial for the group in the long run and enhance its earnings potential as the market there for commercial and investment banking was good.

On another note, Nazir declined to comment when asked about news reports that said CIMB Investment Bank Bhd would be the lead adviser for the initial public offering (IPO) of Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s petrochemical business. According to reports, apart from CIMB Investment Bank, foreign banks Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley would also play an advisory role in the IPO.

Meanwhile, CIMB-Principal Asset Management chief executive officer J. Campbell Tupling said that ETFs were becoming more popular with investors as an alternative asset class to construct or fill gaps in their investment portfolio.

“ETFs will appeal to many investors in spite of their relative newness in Malaysia. They have a straightforward structure, are inexpensive to trade, and are as liquid as stocks,” he said. “In addition, they have the diversification advantages of an index unit trust fund.”

Since ETFs are passively-managed funds designed to mirror an index, Tupling said they had lower expense ratios compared with traditional unit trust funds. “Furthermore, an ETF is liquid and flexible as units could be acquired or disposed of in standard lot size as prescribed in the prospectus,” he said.