00:00We saw a really good year for listings in Malaysia last year, right?
00:04Is that a record high? How many did we see?
00:07Thank you, Avril. We saw 60 IPOs last year.
00:11And year-to-date, we already have 6 IPOs.
00:15And if you actually extrapolate that, we should be on the right track.
00:19But for Bursa Malaysia, our focus is not just numbers this year.
00:23We want to be able to find larger IPOs.
00:26We want to be able to help companies to be able to raise capital, larger capital.
00:32And we are at the back of a very strong economic momentum also.
00:37We see growth coming in at 4 to 4.5% GDP this year.
00:45We are already seeing year-to-date net foreign inflows of close to a billion ringgit.
00:51And at the back of that momentum, we are also seeing a strong pipeline of bigger IPOs.
00:56But I want to be clear that for Bursa Malaysia, we want to be able to help the larger SMEs.
01:02We want to be able to help the mid-market.
01:04But we want to also focus on large IPOs coming to market because they bring a lot of breadth and depth into the market.
01:11So in terms of attracting large IPOs, some say that, you know, for last year, it was industrial or consumption-related companies, right?
01:20For the large IPOs to come in, it needs to be tech-focused.
01:22Is that also the game plan?
01:24Absolutely.
01:24So I think if you see what we, you know, in terms of government policies, national semiconductor strategy, NIMP, NETR, a lot of it is also at the back of building high-value, high-growth sector.
01:40And with that, we will start seeing advanced manufacturing growing.
01:45And in, you know, for 26, 27 and beyond, we will see some large IPOs coming through in that space.
01:54So it is building traction.
01:56It is building scale.
01:57What is the pipeline looking like?
01:59Pipeline is very strong for 2026.
02:02We already see a very strong pipeline, some of them at the back of 2025 spillover, because in 2025, as you know, it was a challenging first half.
02:15So some companies were thinking about it, but subsequently towards Q3, Q4, decided to go ahead.
02:21So that spillover has come through into the market.
02:23So we are seeing a strong pipeline, and we are expecting a few large IPOs coming through, but across sectors, you know, healthcare, potentially consumers and pharmaceutical.
02:38So we are looking forward to that.
02:41Large IPOs, might that include Skychip this year then?
02:45Well, I can't be specific on it, but we would be looking at companies in that space, yeah.
02:51Okay, companies in that space, meaning tech, meaning chips, we are today in the market seeing a tech drought.
02:57What are the market conditions then that, you know, feed this appetite for tech-related stocks on Versa?
03:03I think if you look back at 2025, you saw a lot of investor flows into North Asia at the back of the AI thematic.
03:16And the drivers are real, and early this year, we saw further diversification of that into ASEAN, and Malaysia was a big beneficiary.
03:28I mean, we already have a strong semiconductor base at the back of that, looking at growth in data centers,
03:35at the back of that in growth in other advanced manufacturing to support semiconductors.
03:40And I think in that space also, we also have a lot of larger SMEs, mid-market companies, supporting the big companies,
03:52supporting the larger SMEs, the larger semiconductor companies in, you know, doing clean room, doing packaging.
04:02So we are continuously supporting all these companies to grow and build capital.
04:07There's a lot of competition for listings, though, in the region.
04:11I mean, we don't have to name rich countries, but what is Malaysia's plans to attract those listings?
04:19And maybe you can share with us a bit more about your value-up plans as well.
04:24So I think firstly, we drive some differentiators.
04:27For Malaysia, we have a very strong domestic liquidity, domestic institutional base to support and anchor a lot of the fundraising that happens in Malaysia.
04:40And coupled with that, we've also got a strong positioning in Islamic capital.
04:47So we are able to support Sharia compliant.
04:52We have 80% of our stocks are actually Sharia compliant already.
04:57And in terms of pushing forward, you know, with bringing growing companies, I know you mentioned ValueUp.
05:08ValueUp is certainly a program that we would be looking at going forward in some form.
05:13I think we shall be exploring that further.
05:17But I think the focus for Bursa Malaysia will be, number one, to build vibrancy.
05:24Vibrancy through various means.
05:26One, of course, clearly building larger, bringing larger IPOs to market to be able to build that depth.
05:32Secondly, to be able to have further investor engagement.
05:35That's important for us.
05:37The investor engagement is to be able to sell the Malaysia positioning, to be able to sell corporate Malaysia to the investor base, to be ready and well positioned to capture flows to come in.
05:49The third area is clearly to support our companies.
05:54And that touches a little bit on the ValueUp, where we come out with very clear programs to help these companies to grow.
06:03So one area is certainly research.
06:05So we, Bursa Malaysia, has a program called Bursa Rice Plus, which supports companies who are off the radar to be able to have research to support them with the investor community.
06:20You talk about market vibrancy.
06:22We have been seeing a number of attempted or successful delistings.
06:27Does that affect market vibrancy in your mind?
06:29I think privatizations and delistings are part and parcel of corporate activities.
06:35And we see that all the time.
06:37Some companies delist, but they come back bigger and they come back larger.
06:44So to us, I think for us, privatizations are part and parcel of corporate Malaysia.
06:50And it's actually about companies finding the right means to be able to optimize their corporate structures and capital to come back more efficient and better value.
07:05What are you seeing in terms of the foreign shareholdings?
07:08Is there marked improvement there?
07:11So foreign shareholdings has been pretty steady in Malaysia.
07:14There are, of course, flows in and out.
07:20Portfolio flows today are very, they come in pretty quick and they also exit in some instances pretty quick.
07:29But I think what we are seeing from a strategic perspective, we are seeing very stable shareholdings in a lot of our companies.
07:39But as I mentioned, we are seeing net inflows today.
07:42We have net inflows of close to a billion ringgit in Malaysia.
07:47And at the back of the strong momentum, we expect to see very strong inflows coming through.
07:51Where is the money coming from?
07:53Where are some of these inflows coming from?
07:55I think a lot of it are also coming from global portfolio capital, you know, from developed markets.
08:02What other plans does Bursa have, or Malaysia for that matter, to attract more foreign money?
08:10It's at the back of a lot of very strong programs that we see today.
08:14And if you look at Malaysia's shift in terms of building high value and high growth sectors,
08:26we are continuously seeing a lot of attraction for companies to come in and have a very conducive investment environment.
08:39So if you look at semiconductors, for example, you see the various programs that have been put in place to be able to support.
08:49And at the back of that, we expect to see a lot more liquidity.
08:52The last time I spoke to you, you also mentioned something about, you know, getting new revenue streams for Bursa.
09:00How is the exchange looking at capitalizing on global volatility, perhaps through offering more derivatives products?
09:08So derivatives is one of our core products.
09:12So we are continuously building the derivative product line.
09:17Today, we want to be able to bring a lot more high net worth retail participation into the derivative space.
09:25We have introduced last month a mini FKLI product, which is the futures on the KLCI.
09:34And that has built traction.
09:38And we continue to look at various product lines to scale out on the derivative space.
09:45On other areas, for example, our non-trading revenues, a lot of focus is also being put in our existing platform,
09:55which is called CSI platform, the centralized sustainability platform,
09:59where we capture sustainability reporting for the market.
10:04And we want to be able to create a marketplace to be able to partner with other providers
10:12to be able to support better and more efficient reporting for the marketplace.
10:21And secondly, we are also looking at areas where we can actually monetize our data sets.
10:25So there's a lot of focus being put in there.
10:28Dataset monetization, that's a big one.
10:30I mean, that seems to be the priority as well for Bursa.
10:34Do you have to, you know, perhaps engage in some M&As in order to scale that part of the business?
10:40Yes, definitely.
10:41So one area that we look at quite a lot is partnerships.
10:45So partnerships is a focus.
10:47We do a lot of partnerships.
10:48Currently, we have two partnerships on the data side,
10:53and we will continue to develop that area to be able to capture greater levels of revenue.
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