Malaysia's Lotte Chemical sets ceiling price for US$1.4b IPO : IFR

[KUALA LUMPUR] Malaysia's Lotte Chemical Titan Holding has set a ceiling price of 8 ringgit a share for its planned IPO, giving it a total size of up to 5.9 billion ringgit (S$1.901 billion), IFR Asia reported, citing three sources with knowledge of the deal.

The listing could be one of the biggest IPOs in years in Malaysia, which has not seen any listing of US$1 billion and above since the US$1.5 billion IPO of Astro Malaysia Holdings in 2012.

A separate source confirmed the ceiling price to Reuters, adding the IPO's indicative price range has not been determined yet. IFR Asia is a publication of Thomson Reuters.

The subsidiary of South Korea's Lotte Chemical Corporation plans to sell 740.4 million shares, or 30 per cent of the enlarged capital of the company in the IPO.

Lotte Chemical Titan could not be immediately reached for a comment.

The IPO also includes a greenshoe option of 55.5 million shares, or 2.5 per cent of the enlarged capital. A total of 684.7 million shares will be placed to institutions and retail portion takes up 55.7 million. Premarketing is expected to start next week.

The IPO was originally planned for last year but was shelved following revelations of South Korea's investigations into alleged fraud at Lotte Group.

The proceeds will be used to build a naphtha cracker plant in Indonesia.

Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and Maybank are joint global coordinators on the deal while bookrunners are CIMB, HSBC and Nomura.

REUTERS