Cambodia Gets Ready to Open Its Stock Exchange

Min Sovannry hadn’t been born when leaders of the Communist Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and abolished Cambodia’s money, markets, and financial system. Now Sovannry, a 21-year-old college student, can’t wait to embrace capitalism. One of thousands of Cambodians who have attended stock trading seminars in Phnom Penh, Min says she’ll take as much as one-third of the $300 monthly salary she expects to earn next year and invest it in the country’s stock exchange, which is scheduled to begin trading its first shares in April. “It’s a chance for me to make money from buying stocks instead of putting it in the bank,” she says.

Trading will begin on April 18 when state-owned Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority has its initial public offering. Phnom Penh Water’s shares will likely be priced near the high end of the target range after investors sought more than 10 times the available stock, says a person with knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the offering. The company, which plans to raise as much as 82.8 billion riel ($21 million), held a two-week road show in the nation’s capital starting Feb. 29, with about 400 potential investors crammed into a conference hall with seating capacity for half that number.