Full Foreign Ownership Allowed

Full foreign ownership allowed

By Adeline Paul Raj
The Business Times
2009/10/24

MALAYSIA will allow corporate finance and financial planning companies to be fully foreign-owned as part of plans to liberalise the stock market further and attract more investments.

Previously, such companies were required to have at least 30 per cent local shareholding.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in announcing the plans to further ease stock market rules in the federal budget yesterday, also said that commission-sharing arrangements between stockbrokers and remisiers would be fully liberalised in 2011.

Until then, there will be flexible brokerage sharing at a minimum rate of 40 per cent for remisiers.

Bursa Malaysia Bhd said this move would balance the risk-return ratio for remisiers.

"This market-based commission incentive model will motivate the remisiers towards galvanising more interest by investors in the stock market as an investment option. We also hope (it) will see more new blood entering the industry," its chief executive officer Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said.

Meanwhile, Najib also said that all public-listed companies would be required to offer e-dividends to shareholders. This is seen as a more efficient payment system.

Stockbroking companies will also provide e-payment options for clients to receive and make payments.