Felda Global Ventures In Pursuit Of Global Partnerships

By Joshua Foong LONDON, April 28 (Bernama) -- Felda Global Ventures (FGVH) CEO Sabri Ahmad is leading a team to woo international cornerstone investors in view of its initial public offer (IPO). Sabri was in town for back-to-back meetings with British fund managers in effort to generate a European interest on the IPO, reported to be the third biggest in the Southeast Asian region. "We have gotten some good pledges. Overall, the response from our prospective European investors have been positive," he said in an interview with Bernama. Apart from London, Sabri and his team will also visit potential investors in Hong Kong and Singapore with a similar objective. The FGVH's draft prospectus exposure to the Securities Commission revealed that the total IPO shares comprised an offer for sale by the FGVH of up to 1.21 billion shares to local and foreign institutional and selected investors, and a public issue of up to 980 million shares. Of the public issue shares, 286.8 million will be offered to local and foreign institutional and selected investors. "This listing will allow us to raise funds to expand business and make selective growth acquisitions," he said. "We are also on the lookout for an international strategic partner to collaborate on our downstream operations. In order to venture further and to expand our business, we want to partner with the top operators in the plantations industry," he said. "The IPO and our current global strategy is very much in line with our intention to transform FGVH into a world player," he added. For its financial year ended Dec 31, 2011, FGVH's net profit stood at RM1.01 billion on revenue of RM7.47 billion. This compared with its net profit of RM844.43 million and revenue of RM5.8 billion in 2010, and a net profit of RM313.4 million on revenue of RM2.88 billion. (US$1=RM3.06) --BERNAMA