KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 5): Bursa Malaysia will consider the Employees Provident Fund's (EPF) appeal to make a verbal representation on why the pension fund  should be allowed to vote on the planned CIMB Group Holdings Bhd-RHB Capital Bhd-Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB) merger.

Bursa Malaysia's appeals committee (AC) will also consider RHB Capital and MBSB's request to hold a watching brief during EPF's verbal representation, RHB Capital and MBSB said today.

"There is no automatic right to oral representation and it is the prerogative of the AC to allow or disallow such requests.

"As such, RHB Capital’s representatives and EPF’s representatives are requested to be present on 10 December 2014 in the event the AC grants the requests," RHB Capital said in a statement on Bursa Malaysia's website.

The request by the EPF, RHB Capital and MBSB followed Bursa Malaysia's decision last October to reject EPF's request to vote on the merger.

Bursa Malaysia had disallowed EPF to vote because the pension fund is a major shareholder in CIMB, RHB Capital and MBSB.

The EPF is the second-largest shareholder in CIMB with a 14.65% stake.

The EPF is also the largest shareholder in RHB Capital and MBSB with 40.93% and 64.22% stakes respectively.

At 12.30pm, CIMB shares fell two sen or 0.4% to RM5.49 for a market capitalisation of RM46.25 billion. RHB Capital declined eight sen or 1.1% to RM7.52 for a market value of RM19.34 billion.

MBSB dropped one sen to RM2.52, valuing the group at RM6.82 billion.