UUE Holdings Berhad's (UUE) initial public offering (IPO) rose 175% from its opening price of RM0.24 per share on its debut on Bursa Malaysia Securities' ACE Market today.    

UUE's shares opened at the price of RM0.66 representing a 175% premium over its issue price of RM0.24 per share, with an opening volume of 30.71 million shares as at 9:00 a.m.

At 9.45am, the counter reached a high of 0.68 sen with a trading volume of 126 940 500 before tapering lower to 0.65 sen soon after.    

The company successfully raised a total of RM29.98 million through the public issue of 124,902,000 million new ordinary shares (Public Issue Shares) priced at RM0.24 per share. 52.5% or RM15.75 million of the utilisation of proceed will be utilised for purchase of machinery and equipment, and with 36.3% or RM10.89 million channelled for the working capital.    

The remaining proceeds of RM3.33 million have been earmarked for listing expenses.    

The Company's listed shares are classified as Shariah compliant by the Shariah Advisory Council of the Securities Commission Malaysia.
The Company's public issue portion which was made available to the Malaysian public via balloting was oversubscribed by a rate of 103.83 times with a total of 25,019 applications for with approximately of 3.19 billion shares.    

The Independent Non-Executive Chairman of UUE, Lee Chye Tee said, "Looking forward, we plan to acquire more machinery to expand our range of underground utilities engineering solutions and the scale of our projects. This includes acquiring a maxi rig horizontal directional drilling (HDD) machine to venture into subsea HDD works, thereby broadening our service offerings.    

"To supplement our existing assets, we lease additional machinery, including HDD machines, excavators, and lorries. We are also committed to further expanding our services in Singapore. The demand for underground utilities engineering solutions is driven by Singapore's plans to increase its population to between 6.5 million and 6.9 million by 2030. We intend to leverage our track record and expertise to actively participate in tenders for electricity distribution projects in Singapore."    

UUE and its group of subsidiary companies (UUE Group) are principally involved in the provision of underground utilities engineering solutions, with a focus on pipe laying using the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) method in addition to the open cut and micro trenching excavation methods.    

The Group also manufactures and trades high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes, principally for its underground utilities engineering projects. With completed projects spanning various industries, from electrical to telecommunications, UUE has established its presence in Malaysia and Singapore with HDD solutions.    

The Group recorded revenue of approximately RM103.76 million for the latest ten (10)-month financial period ended 31 December (FPE) 2024 whereas revenue for the 12-month period financial year ended 28 February (FYE) 2023 stood at RM88.66 million.    

Gross margins for the FPE 2024 stood at 30.5%, within the historical range between 28.2% to 33.5% for the FYE 2021, 2022 and 2023.

M & A Securities Sdn Bhd is the Adviser, Sponsor, Underwriter, and Placement Agent for UUE's IPO exercise.