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Berjaya Corp Bhd (BCorp) has proposed to list its Kenny Rogers Roasters chain of restaurants nationwide on Bursa Malaysia main market, the company told the exchange yesterday.

The proposed listing is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.

Under the plan, BCorp’s wholly owned unit Berjaya Group Bhd (BGroup) will sell its entire equity stake in Berjaya Roasters (M) Sdn Bhd to Berjaya Food Bhd (BFood) for RM72mil in exchange for 141 million shares in BFood.

Upon completion, BGroup will undertake a proposed offer for sale of 35.8 million shares in BFood, which represents about 25.35% stake in the company at an offer price to be determined later.

BCorp said the cash proceeds from the proposed offer for sale would be utilised for its working capital and/or its subsidiaries. BFood was incorporated as listing vehicle late last year, and upon the completion of the exercise, it will be principally engaged in the development and operation of the Kenny Rogers Roasters chain of restaurants in Malaysia.

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HONG Leong Bank Bhd has raised its buyout offer to smaller rival EON Capital Bhd (EONCap) to RM7.30 a share, a move deemed unprecedented for its shrewd owner Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan.

Yesterday’s last-minute change came about after EONCap’s new board, led by acting chairman Gooi Hoe Soon, who is among the seven independent directors appointed recently, told Hong Leong that it would reject the proposal if the offer price was not raised before the deadline today.

“EONCap’s board of directors had a meeting on Wednesday and had told Hong Leong that it needed a better price. Otherwise it would reject the offer. The independent directors were firm that they could not present the same offer to shareholders,” a source told Business Times yesterday.

It seemed to be a gamble on the part of EONCap if the plan was to force out a better offer since Hong Leong’s controlling shareholder, Quek, is known to hold tight to his coffers and has almost never relented at the negotiation table in the past.

Still, the board of EONCap will have to decide today if it will table the RM5.06 billion sweetened deal to shareholders.

Like in the previous proposal, Hong Leong has required EONCap to deal with it exclusively on the sale in good faith.

Hong Leong, the country’s sixth largest lender, had on Tuesday revived an earlier proposal to buy out EONCap’s banking assets, sticking to the same price of RM4.92 billion, or RM7.10 a share.

Hong Leong’s previous plan was shot down by EONCap’s board, which said the offer price then significantly undervalued the group.

One of EONCap’s major owner, Rin Kei Mei, who is a keen seller, had since planned a change in the board’s composition so that Hong Leong’s takeover plan could be revived and brought to shareholders for a decision.

EONCap shares closed up 2 sen at RM7.05 yesterday.

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The chief of Malaysia’s stock exchange wants to see certain regulatory constraints removed to help improve retail participation in stock trading.

Constraints like the 30 per cent Bumiputera quota for licenced dealers, for example, has had an impact on limiting the growth of remisiers and dealers in the country.

This, in turn, has hampered retail investor growth.

“It’s fine to have this requirement, but if it’s getting in the way of the growth of the industry, then I think we should consider some other ways of encouraging more Bumiputera participation in the industry,” Bursa Malaysia Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Seri Yusli Mohamed Yusof told Business Times in a telephone interview.

He was commenting on his “wish list” of changes to improve Malaysia’s capital market.

“We want to have our capital market on a level playing field with other capital markets around us. So we hope some of these issues can be (addressed), if not at (the upcoming) Invest Malaysia 2010, then at least sometime in the near future,” he said.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is expected to unveil initial details of a new economic model for the country at the conference on Tuesday, and this may include improvements to the capital market.

Bursa has for some years now been trying to improve retail participation in the stock market, with not much effective results.

“We rely a lot on the retail broker and remisier base to tap into the retail investors segment. But if you study the statistics over the last 10 to 15 years, the number of retail brokers and remisiers hasn’t grown,” he lamented.

The number of active remisiers has shrunk “quite substantially”, and this will get in the way of Bursa trying to grow the retail segment.

Retail investors constitute between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of trading value now, compared with about 60 per cent in 1999.

Yusli also thinks that more foreign brokers should be allowed to serve investors, particularly retail investors, as this would stir innovation in the industry.

Retail investors currently don’t have much choice in terms of who provides them products and services apart from local brokers, he said.

“We have a very strong middle-class, which I think is not being adequately serviced by our retail brokers,” he remarked

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