KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 17): icapital.biz Bhd's largest shareholder, City of London Investment Management Co Ltd (CLIM), has increased its stake in the group to 16.87% after buying 119,900 shares.

The purchase was made on the open market today. The buy lifted CLIM's total holdings in the group to 23.76 million shares, icapital.biz said in a filing to the stock exchange.

CLIM has been steadily buying more shares in icapital.biz, which is a closed-end fund that raised RM140 million via its listing on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia, increasing its stake from 16.62% on March 30.

Last September, it was reported that CLIM had intended to vote against the re-election of one of its directors, Leong So Seh, at the group's annual general meeting.

Similarly, the major shareholder had opposed the re-election of directors in 2015, namely Datuk Ng Peng Hong, Datuk Seri Syed Ismail Syed Azizan and Datuk Seri Md Ajib Anuar, all of whom had been re-elected.

At the time, the shareholder said the board had responded inadequately to icapital.biz's performance, and that there had been a persistently wide discount between the company's share price and its net asset value.

Shares in icapital.biz rose 5 sen or 1.92% to close at RM2.65 today with 139,900 shares traded. Its shares have risen some 13 sen or 5.16% since the start of the week from a close of RM2.52 last Friday.