KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 3): Malayan Banking Bhd's (Maybank) foreign shareholding fell to 16.23% as at July 23, 2021, the lowest in more than four years since February 2017, according to updates on Maybank’s website.

Maybank, which has 11.69 billion issued shares, said that a week earlier (July 16, 2021), its foreign shareholding stood at 16.26%.

The financial services provider, which provides foreign shareholding data from as far back as 2012, did not elaborate on the updated figures.

A glance across these numbers show that Maybank’s latest-reported foreign shareholding figure at 16.23% as at July 23, 2021 is the lowest since Feb 17, 2017 when its foreign shareholding stood at 16.24%.

On Feb 10, 2017, Maybank’s foreign shareholding stood at 16.16%, the group said.

Maybank’s lowest foreign shareholding on record was 13.33% on Jan 6, 2012 while the highest figure was 25.99% on May 24, 2013, according to the group.

Today, Hong Leong Investment Bank Bhd (HLIB) analyst Chan Jit Hoong wrote in a note that in HLIB’s opinion, Maybank’s risk-reward profile is skewed to the upside, premised on Maybank being a prime candidate for rotational recovery play among the FBM KLCI's 30 constituents and the notion that Maybank is "less susceptible to foreign equity sell-off".

Chan said HLIB retained its "buy" call on Maybank shares with an unchanged target price of RM9.40.

At Bursa Malaysia’s 12:30pm break today, Maybank’s share price settled up one sen or 0.13% at RM8 for a market value of about RM93.52 billion.

Since the beginning of 2021, Maybank’s share price had declined to current levels from its year-to-date highest closing share price of RM8.55 on March 11, 2021.

Today, CGS-CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd analyst Ivy Ng Lee Fang wrote in a note that foreign investors were the largest net seller of Malaysia-listed equities last week (July 26 to 30, 2021).

Ng said foreign investors' net selling flow rose 292% to RM580 million worth of equities last week, their highest weekly net sale value year to date. 

"They were net sellers of the financial services and consumer product sectors,” she said.

She said today foreign investors’ top three net sell stocks last week were Public Bank Bhd, Maybank and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd.