ReformIS
[ Berita (News) | Cari (Search) | Menu Utama (Main Menu) | Hantar Berita (Submit News) ]
From: ROBIN BROMBY
Date: 05 May 1999
Time: 00:23:52
SINGAPORE investors yesterday saw the local stock index regain its pre-Asian crisis level but the republic's plans to make the local share market a regional centre are dead.
Malaysian authorities, who destroyed the Stock Exchange of Singapore's regional aspirations last September, were still rubbing salt in the wounds this week.
Last August Malaysia froze all shares in its companies bought through the SES – and the Malaysian stocks were the core of the Singapore exchange's regional over-the-counter operation, Clob International.
The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange had always regarded the trade in Malaysian stock across the Causeway as a "black market", robbing it of millions of dollars a year in transaction revenue.
About 170,000 Singapore investors hold 10.5 billion ringgit ($4.2 billion) worth of Malaysian shares.
Many had bought since the Asian crisis hit, believing they would make substantial profits when the Malaysian sharemarket bounced back.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was quoted in Kuala Lumpur newspapers yesterday saying Singaporeans should not expect any windfall when the shares are unfrozen, and they should be happy to receive prices which obtained last September – which are substantially below present KLSE levels.
Late last week a Malaysian company with links to key government figures, Effective Capital Sdn Bhd, offered to buy all the shares held in Singapore at roughly half the current values. This was another blow, as the many Singaporeans believed they could eventually be allowed to sell their stock through the KLSE.
Even if the Malaysian Government makes a better offer, it seems certain they will not allow the Singapore holders the luxury of trading the stock at market value.
So it would have been small solace to the SES that, in the face of a such a humiliation at the hands of Kuala Lumpur, the Straits Times index yesterday managed to regain for the first time the 1933 points at which it stood just before the Thai baht devaluation unleashed the regional crisis.
The two stock exchanges have been locked in battle for more than eight years.
At the freezing of stock last September, 104 Malaysian companies had their shares trading through Clob.
Without those, Clob is finished. And the SES itself is stuck in the international minor leagues.