Minimart king hits billionaire status in Malaysia’s hot IPO market

KUALA LUMPUR – Mr Lee Thiam Wah’s first retail venture was selling snacks from a roadside stall in Malaysia. Several decades later, the entrepreneur has transformed that humble beginning into a sprawling retail empire of more than 2,600 convenience stores spread across the nation.

On Sept 9, the 60-year-old was minted as a billionaire after his company 99 Speed Mart Retail Holdings went public in Kuala Lumpur.

The RM2.36 billion (S$705 million) initial public offering (IPO) is Malaysia’s largest in seven years. At the IPO price of RM1.65 per share, Mr Lee’s fortune is about US$3.3 billion (S$4.3 billion), the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.

The stock opened at RM1.85 and closed at RM1.88, up 14 per cent from the IPO price.

The listing cements Kuala Lumpur as the busiest location for market debuts in South-east Asia in 2024 and shows investor optimism in the nation’s growth potential. The firm’s shares are seen as a way to build exposure to the consumer sector in an economy that is projected to expand as much as 5 per cent this year.

“It comes at a crucial moment for both Malaysia’s IPO landscape and South-east Asia’s capital markets,” said Mr Mohit Mirpuri, a senior partner and fund manager at Singapore-based SGMC Capital. “This could boost market sentiment and position Malaysia as a key player (in regional listings),” he said.

Mr Lee was born in 1964 in Klang, Selangor. His father, a construction worker, and his mother, a hawker, had 11 children and could afford to send him to school for only six years.

His first retail venture – that roadside stall – was born of necessity. When he was a child, he contracted polio and permanently lost the use of his legs. “Nobody would hire me due to my physical limitation,” he told Forbes in 2012. “I have to help myself.”

Mr Lee opened a grocery shop in 1987, and a decade later, he was running eight stores under the name Pasar Mini 99, where his wife Ng Lee Tieng, 44, started her career as a purchasing executive in 1997. Until the IPO, the couple were the company’s sole owners.

Today, the chain is the largest of its kind in Malaysia, holding a 40 per cent share in the mini-market segment and nearly 12 per cent among all grocery retailers, according to the IPO prospectus.

The scale of the firm’s operations creates a barrier to entry and expansion for other mini-market players in Malaysia, “hindering their ability to compete effectively”, said Mr Arun George, an analyst at Global Equity Research.

“(Mr Lee’s) journey is an inspiring example for small business owners, showing that with determination, perseverance and a customer-focused approach, it’s possible to scale a business, even from humble beginnings,” said SGMC’s Mr Mirpuri.

Mr Lee will remain as the company’s chief executive officer. The 99 Speed Mart chain forms the bulk of his net worth, along with cash collected from dividends and the share sale.

He also has stakes in multiple closely held businesses, including the sole Malaysian franchisor of Burger King restaurants. In 2023, he also briefly emerged as one of the biggest individual shareholders in Alliance Bank Malaysia, with a roughly 5 per cent stake, regulatory filings show.

As the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index equities benchmark heads to its best year since 2010, listings are back after years of lacklustre growth.

99 Speed Mart’s listing attracted 14 cornerstone investors that included abrdn Asia and UOB Asset Management (Malaysia).

About 28 per cent of the IPO proceeds will go to the company, which plans to set up new outlets and distribution centres, purchase delivery trucks and repay loans, said the prospectus. The company posted a net profit of RM133.2 million (S$40 million) on revenue of RM2.4 billion for the first three months of 2024. BLOOMBERG