Bursa Malaysia targets two large H2 IPOs as Bestari Food, KK Mart, 1 Doc await listing windows

Bursa Malaysia is heading into the second half of 2026 with a refreshed RM34 billion IPO market capitalisation target, after chief executive officer Datuk Fad'l Mohamed confirmed the exchange is preparing for "one or two large IPOs" before the year closes, Malay Mail reported on 30 July 2026, citing the exchange's H1 2026 financial results briefing. The revised target is up from RM28 billion earlier in the year and reflects submissions already received across the Main Market and ACE Market.

The deal

The H1 2026 tally closed with 36 new listings that raised RM5.4 billion in proceeds. As of late July the year-to-date figure had climbed to 41 — 29 on the ACE Market, six on the Main Market and six on the LEAP Market — with consumer, healthcare and technology names dominating the submission queue. The 41 listings have already exceeded half of 2025's full-year total of 60.

The H2 2026 pipeline that has filed draft prospectuses with the Securities Commission Malaysia, and is awaiting listing windows, includes several names investors are tracking closely:

• Bestari Food Berhad — Main Market, draft prospectus filed 6 July 2026 with RHB Investment Bank as principal adviser. The food and beverage group's listing is positioned as one of the consumer-sector flagship candidates for the second half.
• KK Mart Retail Berhad — Main Market convenience retail chain, draft prospectus filed 20 April 2026 with Maybank Investment Bank. The IPO involves up to 840 million shares, with offer price, fundraising size and listing date not yet disclosed in the draft filing.
• Big Caring Group Bhd — Creador-backed pharmacy and healthcare retail chain, Main Market, with Maybank IB, RHB IB and AmInvestment Bank as joint principal advisers. Draft filed 2 April 2026.
• 1 Doc International Berhad — Beauty care chain, Main Market, lead underwriter RHB IB. Draft filed 14 January 2026, updated 22 May 2026. The Edge reported on 27 July 2026 that the planned September listing has been delayed due to weaker-than-expected retail demand, with the prospectus issuance now pushed back.

Each of these has SC prospectus exposure but no confirmed listing date. Bestari Food, KK Mart and Big Caring remain the strongest candidates for the H2 2026 window given the maturity of their prospectus filings; 1 Doc's slip into late 2026 or beyond is now widely expected on the back of the September delay.

Why this matters

For Malaysian retail investors, the H2 2026 pipeline is the most concentrated Main Market opening in three years. Across 2024 and 2025, Main Market IPOs averaged 8 to 11 per year, with 60 to 70 per cent of all listing activity routed to the ACE Market. If even two of the four named prospects above list before December, the Main Market would close 2026 with 8 to 10 listings — close to its 2024 level and roughly 50 per cent above 2025.

The exchange is also signalling that the "large IPO" benchmark it is now chasing is the RM1 billion-and-above market capitalisation threshold. As of mid-2026, the only Main Market listing to clear that bar was Sunway Healthcare Holdings in March, which raised RM2.86 billion at a RM1.45 issue price and closed its first day up 28 per cent. The Sunway Healthcare-style deal is what the H2 plan appears to be pointing at, alongside one or two more domestic champions of similar size.

The broader sector mix matters as well. Healthcare (Sunway Healthcare, Big Caring, 1 Doc), consumer (Bestari Food, KK Mart) and engineering and services names are filling the Main Market slots — a sharp contrast to the technology-led 2021-2022 cycle, which was driven by ACE Market and LEAP Market listings. Investors deploying capital into H2 2026 should plan around a pipeline that is heavier on defensive consumer and healthcare cash flows, with fewer pure-play tech growth names than in the prior cycle.

For foreign funds, the open question is whether the H2 listings can sustain the liquidity and oversubscription momentum seen in H1 2026. The Edge's late-July IPO round-up noted that the 41 YTD listings remain heavily weighted to the smaller board, which is a structural feature of the Malaysian market and limits how much weight foreign funds can place on Main Market depth, even when one or two marquee deals come through.

What's next

The next data points are the listing announcements from Bestari Food, KK Mart and Big Caring, and the still-undisclosed "one or two large IPOs" the CEO flagged at the briefing. The 2027-2030 strategic roadmap the exchange plans to unveil in Q4 2026 will add a separate set of expectations around tokenisation and thematic ETFs, but for the immediate cycle the H2 listing window is the event. At the current pace, Malaysia should come close to or exceed the 60 listings it recorded across the whole of 2025.

Source: Malay Mail — Big listings incoming: Bursa expects up to two major IPOs before year-end