The 30 percent Bumiputera equity requirement for Malaysian companies seeking public listing is now repealed, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. However, the companies are now required to offer 50 percent of the public shareholding spread to Bumiputera investors.

“The 30 percent requirement remains but it is a macro objective,” Najib said.

Announcing a slew of liberalisation measures affecting the capital market, Najib also said that the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) guidelines covering the acquisition of equity stakes mergers and takeovers is repealed immediately without any new guideline in place.

Najib also said that FIC would no longer process any transaction or impose equity conditions on such transactions.

“I am pleased to announce a comprehensive deregulation of investment guidelines administered by the FIC,” he said.

The other two guidelines encompass treatment of fund raising by a list of companies in the acquisition of properties, he said in his keynote address at the Investment Malaysia Conference in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

Najib also announced a new investment institution called Equity Nasional Bhd (Ekuinas), a private equity fund with an initial capital of RM500mil that would be subsequently enlarged to a RM10bil fund.

It would focus on investments in sectors with high growth potential in line with the new economic model.

Najib also said that the ownership in the wholesale segment of the fund management industry would be fully liberalised to allow 100% ownership for qualified and leading fund management companies to establish operations in Malaysia.

He said that for the retail segment, foreign shareholding limits on unit trust management companies would be raised to 70% from its current level of 49%.

These measures would to further strengthen Malaysia’s position in the fund management and unit trust management of the capital market value chain and allow fund managers an additional option to establish their own operation in the region, he said.