50% offer is for the IPO only.

After the IPO, there is no condition other than the 25% shares must be public spread. So it is good for a lot of companies now like DIGI who I believe still does not meet the requirements.

Family owned companies who wanna get listed will have less restrictions, meaning they do not need to give a certain percentage to non- family members to meet the requirements.

As far as I know, these are just for public listed companies. MNCs as before should not be affected at all unless they decide to list their local operations like Shell and Esso. This is good for them because they can keep most of the directorships under their own appointed management team.

Edit: I'm more interested in current companies which have met the 30% quota. Does it mean they can reduce it from now on?

Edit: Ahh got my answer here already. Current companies now has no requirements to keep the 30% quota.

The Star highlights

This post has been edited by skiddtrader: Jul 1 2009, 08:34 AM

Well I think its a good move to liberalise the market a bit. Investors who are turned-off earlier by the prospect of giving away as much 30% of their major shareholding have now no more worries.

The quota was also rumoured to be the obstacle to US FTA with Malaysia. Maybe after this, the deal can be closed.