A look at stocks as old as Malaysia

This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 15, 2025 - September 21, 2025

SIXTY-two years after the Federation of Malaysia was formed, a good number of counters from the nation’s earliest trading days are still on the local stock exchange today. A copy of the Malayan Stock Exchange Gazette shows a list of companies whose shares were traded on the bourse in 1962/63 (see Table 1).

The local stock market was established in a commodity economy. In the early 1960s, it was dominated by companies operating rubber plantations and tin mines, reflecting the backbone of the country’s economy back then.

Pure-play plantation names such as United Malacca Bhd (KL:UMCCA) can trace trading roots to that era. Legacy rubber planters like Kluang Rubber Co (M) Bhd (KL:KLUANG) and Sungei Bagan Rubber Company (Malaya) Bhd (KL:SBAGAN) (formerly Kluang Rubber Co (M) Ltd and Sungei Bagan Rubber Co (Malaya) Ltd respectively) are still listed on Bursa Malaysia today. The three plantation players were listed on the Malayan Stock Exchange on July 22, April 6 and April 18 in 1961 respectively.

United Malacca was incorporated on April 27, 1910, by its founder, the late Tun Tan Cheng Lock, who held the post of chairman until 1960 before passing the baton to his son, the late Tun Tan Siew Sin, the former finance minister who took over the chairmanship in 1974 after his retirement from the cabinet. Cheng Lock’s granddaughter Datin Paduka Tan Siok Choo is United Malacca’s current chairman.

The company diversified into oil palm in 1966, replacing its old rubber trees. Over the decades, it expanded its business from Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Johor to Sabah and Pahang, as well as Indonesia in January 2016.

Ayer Holdings Bhd (KL:AYER), founded in March 1907 as The Ayer Hitam Planting Syndicate Ltd, began as a rubber plantation company at the Bukit Hitam Estate in Selangor, before adding oil palm to its portfolio later. After listing on March 28, 1961, the company was rebranded as TAHPS Group Bhd in December 2007 before eventually adopting its present name Ayer Holdings a decade later as it diversified into property development.

The company has made Puchong its hunting ground, with its flagship development a 1,290-acre integrated township in Bukit Puchong. Completed projects include shopoffices BP Newtown Phase II and a 21-storey serviced apartment block completed in November 2014 and July 2017 respectively.

As for the mining companies, many have delisted or were taken over by other companies as the sun set on the sector when tin prices crashed in the 1980s, on top of depleting deposits and competition from producers such as Indonesia and China. It is worth noting that Malaysia is the all-time largest producer of tin, having produced 5.6 million tonnes of the commodity from 1851 to 2020.

Among those that are still listed is Sungei Way Dredging Ltd, which is now known as Lion Industries Corp Bhd (KL:LIONIND). According to Lion Industries’ website, Sungei Way Dredging was incorporated in May 1924. It changed its name to Sungei Way Dredging Bhd on April 15, 1966, and later to Supreme Corp Bhd on Oct 1, 1976, and Lion Land Bhd on Oct 21, 1991. It was then relisted on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) on Dec 29, 1973, before eventually assuming its current name on Feb 18, 2003.

Another major component of the local bourse then was the industrial and commercial sector. Companies in this category that grew alongside the country’s economic development include Malayan Banking Bhd (KL:MAYBANK), which was listed in February 1962 and traded as Malayan Banking Ltd then. At a time when foreign players dominated the local banking scene, Maybank was founded by Singaporean business tycoon Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat on May 31, 1960, with its first branch in Jalan Tun H S Lee in Kuala Lumpur. Its shares were floated on the local bourse in 1962.

Today, Maybank is the biggest bank in the country in terms of total assets and one of the largest in Southeast Asia. It is also the largest public-listed company on the local stock exchange and a component stock of the FBM KLCI, with a market capitalisation of RM121.29 billion as at Sept 9.

An investor who bought 1,000 Maybank shares in 1963 would have RM516,010 worth of the stock today, according to Bloomberg’s total return analysis.

Another prominent name is heavy equipment maker Sime Darby Bhd (KL:SIME),which traces its roots back to 1910, when two Englishmen set up Sime, Darby & Co in Melaka as a rubber plantation and estate agency business. Shares of Sime Darby Holdings Ltd were traded on the local bourse in the early 1960s.

The Sime Darby that is listed today resulted from its 2017 demerger that split the group into its automotive and industrial equipment business under Sime Darby, plantation business under SD Guthrie Bhd (KL:SDG) and property development business under Sime Darby Property Bhd (KL:SIMEPROP). In 2007, Sime Darby had merged with Kumpulan Guthrie Bhd and Golden Hope Plantations Bhd to create Synergy Drive, which relisted on Bursa Malaysia on Nov 30, 2007, as Sime Darby.

Today, Sime Darby is a regional industrial and motor powerhouse, enlarged by its full acquisition of UMW Holdings Bhd for RM5.8 billion in March 2024, which added the Toyota and Perodua operations to its stable. It is a component stock of the FBM KLCI, with a market capitalisation of RM14.45 billion as at Sept 9.

Another consumer company whose shares were traded around the time when Malaysia was formed is British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd (KL:BAT), whose history dates back to 1912 under the Rothmans brand of cigarettes. Its shares were traded on the Malayan Stock Exchange under Malayan Tobacco Co Ltd. BAT was formed out of the merger of Rothmans of Pall Mall (Malaysia) Bhd and Malaysian Tobacco Company Bhd on Nov 3, 1999.

Once a favoured dividend play, BAT has seen the illegal cigarette trade eat into its market share. Its market capitalisation has declined from a peak of RM20.13 billion on Sept 30, 2014, to RM1.36 billion on Sept 9, 2025. Note that its 12-month dividend yield is still an attractive 11%.

Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd (KL:F&N) also has a long history on the local bourse, having been traded as Fraser & Neave Ltd in the early 1960s. Fraser & Neave Ltd began as a Singapore-incorporated company that was traded on the joint Malaysia-Singapore exchange. But following the split into separate stock markets in 1973, the trading of Singapore-incorporated counters, including F&N Ltd, continued across the Causeway.

The Bursa-listed F&N Holdings today is a Malaysian entity that was created in 1996 and assumed the listing status of glass products maker Malaya Glass Bhd (already listed in Kuala Lumpur). F&N Ltd remains listed on the Singapore Exchange and owns a controlling stake of 55.48% in F&N Holdings. Other major shareholders of the beverage company include the Employees Provident Fund with 12.69% and Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd with 7.95% (as at Sept 11).

Development of the local stock exchange

Malaysia’s stock market can trace its roots back to 1930, when the Singapore Stockbrokers’ Association was formed. It then re-registered as the Stockbrokers’ Association of Malaya in 1937.

Public trading began on May 9, 1960, with the creation of the Malayan Stock Exchange using a two-board system for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, linked by direct telephone lines so prices in both trading rooms matched.

After the formation of Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963, the bourse was renamed the Stock Exchange of Malaysia the following year. With the secession of Singapore from the federation in 1965, the Stock Exchange of Malaysia was called the Stock Exchange of Malaysia and Singapore (SEMS), being a single market serving both countries. The currency interchangeability ended in May 1973 and the stock exchange was split into the KLSE and the Stock Exchange of Singapore.

As Singapore strove to position its stock exchange as one of the world’s leading financial centres, the KLSE modernised rapidly. Its open-outcry system was replaced by electronic order routing in 1989, and following a demutualisation exercise to enhance competitiveness and to respond to global trends, the local stock exchange was renamed Bursa Malaysia in 2004 and the bourse operator was listed on the main board the following year.

A discussion of the history of the local bourse would not be complete without mentioning the Central Limit Order Book International (CLOB), an over-the-counter market that allowed Singaporeans to trade Malaysian shares in the early 1990s. CLOB was established after Malaysia delisted all the dual-listed stocks from the Stock Exchange of Singapore.

But when Malaysia imposed capital controls in September 1998, the KLSE ruled that CLOB trades were “unrecognised” and froze CLOB-held Malaysian shares, affecting roughly 172,000 Singapore investors with an estimated exposure of RM17 billion. The move ignited a two-year diplomatic and market spat with Singapore. Even with a settlement in 2000 between KLSE and the Singapore Exchange to bring those shares back to the Central Depository System accounts in Malaysia, the whole saga came at the cost of reputational damage among foreign and regional investors in the country.

Evolution of listed companies on the local bourse

Companies that listed not long after the formation of Malaysia included Selangor Dredging Bhd (KL:SDB) in 1964 and Public Bank Bhd (KL:PBBANK) on April 6, 1967.

By 1968, the listing of Matsushita Electric Company (Malaysia) Bhd (now Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Bhd) (KL:PANAMY) signalled the change that the Malaysian economy was undergoing. Panasonic was among the earliest electronics manufacturers listed on the local stock exchange.

From the 1970s onwards, more industrial conglomerates and consumer-goods manufacturers came into the market, while property developers and construction names grew along with urbanisation across the country. The 1990s saw the addition of a defining chapter: the government’s privatisation wave brought large, regulated utility and infrastructure companies to the stock exchange, while the consolidation of banks created the heavyweight financial groups that anchor the benchmark index today.

Listings on the local stock exchange have gone from operators of tin mines and rubber estates to multinational corporations, banks and manufacturers, but a number of early players have endured to this day.

On Malaysia Day, the continuity of names like Maybank, Sime Darby, BAT, United Malacca, Kluang Rubber and Sungei Bagan Rubber serves as signposts in the country’s economic history, forming a living thread from the local bourse’s commodity-era origins to today’s diversified market.

Original Article

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/770411