CIMB to pursue deal if Maxis seeks relisting

By Jeeva ArulampalamPublished: 2009/07/31

CIMB Group's top chief says it will try to secure the Maxis Communications Bhd initial public offering (IPO) mandate if the latter decides to relist on Bursa Malaysia.


"If there is such a mandate, we will certainly try to win that mandate. And I'm sure every banker will try to win it," CIMB group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Nazir Razak told reporters after presenting prizes to the winners of CIMB Bank's "Dream.Deposit.Drive - Back Again!" campaign in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Nazir said the relisting of the telecommunications giant would be seen as a major international IPO and the most important equity transaction of the year in Asia-Pacific.

"Therefore, many bankers will be chasing the deal if (Maxis) decides to proceed and invite bankers to bid," he said.

There has been talk of Maxis becoming a public company again within the second half of the year after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak urged it to return to the Malaysian stock market.

Maxis has said it will return, but stopped short of providing a time frame. It was listed on Bursa Malaysia in 2002, but taken private five years later.

On another development, Nazir said that he could neither confirm nor deny a news report that CIMB Bank would help sell conventional and Islamic dollar bonds for Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas).

"I cannot comment on it. There has been no official announcement on that. So we will leave it at that," he said.

The report said that Petronas had hired Morgan Stanley, CIMB Bank and Citigroup Inc to sell five-year sukuk and 10-year conventional notes.

On the retail deposit market, Nazir said the segment had contracted over the past six months but CIMB programmes like the "Dream.Deposit.Drive" campaign had helped mitigate the impact.

"We seem to be ahead of the industry with a year-on-year growth of 10 per cent while our year-to-date growth is in the positive territory," he said.

CIMB Bank head of retail banking Peter England said its retail deposit business stood at some RM32.9 billion, or 9 per cent share of the RM353 billion retail deposit market.