This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 11, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: UWC Bhd, which made its Main Market debut on Bursa Malaysia yesterday, saw its shares close at its intraday high of RM1.40, after jumping 58 sen or 71%.

At 5pm, the counter saw some 201 million shares traded to become Bursa’s most-actively traded stock. UWC also ended among Bursa’s leading gainers.

The integrated engineering support services provider’s share price opened at RM1.10, representing a 34% premium to its initial public offering (IPO) price of 82 sen, the company said in a statement yesterday.

The statement quoted UWC executive director and group chief executive officer Datuk Ng Chai Eng as saying at the listing ceremony: “Today (yesterday) marks a key milestone for UWC as the IPO exercise will provide us with the platform to gain access to the capital markets for our future business expansion, strengthening the stature and corporate profile of our group and to enhance market awareness of our business.

“With the purchase of new machinery and equipment, we are able to increase our production capacity and improve our production efficiency in order to better serve our customers,” Ng said.

UWC’s IPO involved a public issue of 70 million new shares and an offer sale of 33.02 million existing shares.

The listing exercise raised proceeds of RM57.4 million for the company, of which RM32.1 million or 56% will be used to purchase new machinery and equipment over the next three years to expand its production capacity and support production activities. Of the remainder, RM18 million or 31.3% will be used for repayment of bank borrowings, RM2.9 million or 5% for working capital, and RM4.4 million or 7.7% for estimated listing expenses.

At RM1.40 a share, UWC has a market capitalisation of RM513.52 million, based on its issued base of 366.8 million shares.