KUALA LUMPUR (March 29):  Convenience store operator Bison Consolidated Bhd made a strong debut on Bursa Malaysia this morning, jumping as much as 12 sen or 10.9% to RM1.22.

The counter opened 1 sen lower at 9 am. However, it recouped its losses by gradually gaining buying interest.

At 9.25 am, the stock was 8 sen or 7.27% higher at RM1.18. It was the second top actively traded stock this morning, with 43.51 million shares traded.

Bison, which 15.5 million shares were made available for applications by the Malaysian public, was oversubscribed by 6.94 times.

Bison plans to raise RM89 million from its initial public offering (IPO), its managing director Dang Tai Luk had said the group planned to use RM50 million of the IPO proceeds to fund 115 new store openings by October 2017.

In a report dated March 11, PublicInvest Research based on 25 times of FY16 forecasted earnings-per-share (EPS) of 4.7sen, said it implies an upside of 4.3% from Bison’s IPO price of RM1.10.

The research house FY16 forecasted earnings growth is supported by the group’s network store expansion of new outlets, and better product sales mix such as fresh foods with higher margin.

Presently, the group operates 255 outlets across Malaysia. According to an independent assessment done by Smith Zander, Bison is the second largest retail convenience store industry player in Malaysia with a market share of 8.6% based on the number of outlets and 6.6% based on revenue in 2015. It is also the largest homegrown retail convenience store industry player in Malaysia.

The company also has a 50%-joint venture in “WHSmith” with WH Smith Travel, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of WH Smith PLC (UK), one of UK’s leading retailers.

To-date, it has 8 outlets in Malaysia, located in KL International Airport (KLIA), klia2, Langkawi International Airport, Penang International Airport and Kota Kinabalu International Airport.