updated version

New shares in Technology Resources Industries (TRI) will be listed Thursday, the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange said, in a move ending a deadlock which had damaged investor confidence in Malaysia.

The news brought relief to investors and cheered the stock market which rose 0.5 percent in morning trade today after four straight days of losses due to last week's deferment of the listing of the TRI shares.

But share prices closed the day marginally lower as profit-taking in the last few minutes of trade erased earlier gains, dealers said.

The KLSE composite index fell 0.22 points to finish at 701.09, off the day's high of 707.05.

TRI gained 0.16 ringgit to end at RM3.06.

A senior dealer with a local brokerage said the TRI issue had helped improve interest but market sentiment was still "a bit weak".

11th hour dispute

The telecoms company announced Monday the Securities Commission had approved an amendment to its complex restructuring scheme, and the stock exchange later added it had approved the listing of TRI's 473.83 million new shares for Thursday.

TRI was to have listed the new shares on Wednesday last week but the KLSE deferred trading at the 11th hour amid a dispute over their pricing.

The restricted share issue, along with a proposed one-for-one rights issue, was integral to plans to raise RM1.9 billion ringgit to redeem TRI's euro convertible bonds and a loan by April.

The restricted offer shares, valued at RM887 million, were sold largely to foreign institutional investors as part of a scheme to restructure debts of RM3.5 billion.

TRI said Monday the Securities Commission had approved its application to delink the rights issue from the company's internal restructuring.

It said its restructuring scheme was an "extremely complex process" and this had created several problems of interpretation for both the company and the regulators.

Share price up

Earlier in the day, the news restored buying interest in the stock market and sent TRI share price up ten sen to RM3 in morning trade, dealers said.

Pankaj Kumar, senior manager of OSK Research, said "it's a step in the right direction to restore investor confidence."

"Market sentiment was down previously because of TRI, now it's back because of TRI. There was some slight foreign buying earlier," an institutional dealer added.

TRI, which controls Malaysia's second-largest cellular phone operator Celcom, is headed by Tajudin Ramli who is the focus of a police probe into alleged management irregularities at Malaysia Airlines where he was formerly key shareholder and chairman.

Tajudin and Deutsche Telekom are major shareholders of TRI. (AFP)