SINGAPORE — Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings, or MTSH, made a raucous debut Friday as the second company on Myanmar’s Yangon Stock Exchange, riding a flood of interest from the country’s burgeoning equities market.
The developer of the Thilawa Special Economic Zone, an industrial park southeast of Yangon, was to debut at 40,000 kyat ($34.10) a share. But heavy buying put the stock limit-up at 50,000 kyat as soon as trading began. Trading volume for the day totaled 10,157 shares, for a value of 507.85 million kyat.
The Yangon Stock Exchange does not employ a continuous auction system, but rather collects orders during a specified placement period, matching trades at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day.
“Investors may have given securities companies order instructions up until yesterday,” said Kensuke Yazu, an adviser to the Yangon bourse for Japan Exchange Group, which played a large hand in the exchange’s formation. “In any case, we received a number of large buy orders after placement began at 9:30 a.m., keeping MTSH topped out at 50,000 kyat,” he said, The company’s current shareholders also came out to sell in force, he remarked.
MTSH was founded in 2013 by nine companies involved in real estate development and similar fields. Shares were later issued for 10,000 kyat each to more than 15,000 investors, the company reports. Some predicted selling would dominate during the shares’ first session on the Yangon exchange, given an offering price four times the initial level.
Investors remain eager to buy shares through Myanmar’s stock market. First Myanmar Investment, a company with holdings in real estate, financial services and health care, was the first to begin trading on the Yangon exchange on March 25. Those shares went limit-up for their first several sessions as well.
FMI on Friday climbed to 31,500 kyat, its highest since April 26. Trading volume hit 19,753 shares in the most active day since April 8. Whether MTSH’s debut actually affected trading on FMI is unclear, “but there may have been a general air of excitement,” Yazu said.
“As far as today’s buzz and large number of orders are concerned, buying looks to remain strong next week,” the adviser said. Investors are milling around securities companies’ booths at the exchange, eager to open accounts, he added.
Screening is underway for a company that could become the Yangon exchange’s third listing, the bourse reports.
Source: Nikkei
