Adds quote from Sunway chair in paragraphs 5-6; details on IPO, background in paragraphs 8-13

By Danial Azhar and Yantoultra Ngui

KUALA LUMPUR/SINGAPORE, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Sunway Healthcare Holdings IPO-SUNA.KL on Friday launched an initial public offering that is expected to raise at least 2.86 billion ringgit ($736 million) in what would be Malaysia's largest listing in almost a decade.

The IPO offers 1.97 billion shares at 1.45 ringgit each, comprising a 17.1% stake in the company, according to its prospectus.

The offer price would give Sunway Healthcare a market value of 16.7 billion ringgit based on a total 11.5 billion shares, the prospectus said.

The shares are due to begin trading on March 18.

Sunway Healthcare, a unit of Malaysian conglomerate Sunway SWAY.KL, is one of Malaysia's leading private healthcare providers with total licensed beds of 1,805 as of January 2026. The company operates Kuala Lumpur's Sunway Medical Centre, which is the largest private hospital in Malaysia.

Sunway Chairman Jeffrey Cheah said his company's healthcare unit was also seeking to expand regionally.

"We didn't set any timeline, but I think we are looking out for opportunities," he told reporters at the IPO launch on Friday.

The listing would see the combined market capitalisation of all four of the Sunway group's listed units grow to more than 70 billion ringgit, Cheah said.

Sunway Healthcare's listing is set to be Malaysia's biggest IPO since the 3.8 billion ringgit listing of Lotte Chemical Titan Holdings LOTT.KL in 2017.

Bursa Malaysia raised $2.36 billion in listing proceeds in 2025, ranking second in Southeast Asia behind Singapore, according to LSEG data.

Year-to-date in 2026, Malaysian share offerings have raised $128.9 million, LSEG data showed.

The IPO is made up of 575 million new shares and 1.39 billion shares from existing investors that will be issued to retail and institutional investors, the prospectus showed.

Sunway City and Greenwood Capital, an indirect unit of Singapore's GIC, are the selling shareholders.

The IPO is backed by 20 cornerstone investors including the Malaysian unit of insurer AIA Group 1299.HK, Malaysia's pension provider the Employees Provident Fund, and JPMorgan Asset Management, according to the prospectus.

Proceeds will be mainly used to support the expansion of existing hospitals, the prospectus showed.

Reuters reported last year that Sunway Healthcare was looking to debut on Bursa Malaysia with a more than 3 billion ringgit offering, valuing the hospital operator at more than 15 billion ringgit.

For 2024, Sunway Healthcare's net profit rose 42% to 257.5 million ringgit from the prior year, while revenue climbed 27% to 1.85 billion ringgit.

($1 = 3.8860 ringgit)

(Reporting by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru, Danial Azhar in Kuala Lumpur and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Writing by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tom Hogue)

((Roshan.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com;))