“Our ships are still full,” Ooi Lean Hin, managing director of Malaysia’s largest container shipping operator, said in a Monday interview.

The company is seeking RM652 million from its IPO, offering 633.5 million shares at RM1.03 each for an implied market value of about RM2.58 billion. The deal comes amid a pickup in Malaysia’s listing activity, including Sunway Healthcare Holdings Bhd.’s RM2.86 billion offering last month, the largest in nine years.

MTT Shipping, however, isn’t insulated from rising prices due to the conflict, Ooi said. While freight costs have increased between US$50 to US$100 per twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) in Asia, the hikes lag behind those of other regions, he added.

Rates in Asia “are quite good at the moment,” said Ooi, a former Evergreen Marine Corp executive and chairman of the Shipping Association of Malaysia, adding that price mechanisms are in place to ensure bunker costs are passed on to customers.

MTT Shipping serves trade between Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, where it has a 46% market share, the company said. It also operates in countries such as Indonesia and India.

MTT Shipping has Malaysia’s largest and youngest fleet of 26 container ships — it owns 25 of the vessels — and uses Port Klang as its primary hub. The company currently moves 38,879 TEUs a month, Ooi said.

Ooi, who co-founded MTT Shipping in 2010, said the company plans to use money raised from the IPO to increase its fleet to 40 ships by 2029 to meet increasing trade between Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, as well as supporting India expansion plans.

The company will stop taking retail orders on April 3 and expects to list April 21, according to its prospectus.