KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission’s (SC) recent easing of listing requirements for property firms is expected to encourage the creation of more small scale, high-end niche developers within Malaysia’s property hotspots. Real estate experts said niche property players would be attracted by the accomodative policies to go public with a view to benefitting from the flexibility of fund raising in the capital market. The SC, in a series of liberalisation measures announced recently to attract more local and foreign firms to list on Bursa Malaysia, has allowed private developers to be listed on the exchange without fulfilling the minimum 500-acre (20ha) landbank requirement. The regulator had also subjected companies with foreign-based assets and operations to similar listing criteria as those with domestic operations, and removed mandatory requirements for the submission of financial forecasts, except for those facing financial constraints.
(11-2-2008 The Edge)
