In The Edge FD: Harvest Court's Chan emerges in Naim Indah
Groupon loss, weak sales clobber shares
UN's Ban says Arab League to revive Syria mission
Greek party leaders fail to sign off on bailout
In The Edge FD: AirAsia X eyes IPO in 2H
In The Edge FD: MMC-Gamuda JV to earn RM480m, assuming project cost RM8 bn
Categories
| Updated Khazanah’s 1H portfolio value rises to RM85b |
| Written by Isabelle Francis | |||
| Wednesday, 01 July 2009 10:53 | |||
|
Its managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said on July 1 this was a significant increase from the RM69.5 billion as at Dec 31, 2008. “Net worth jumped significantly by RM11.1 billion or 34% to RM44.0 billion translating into a healthy asset cover over liabilities of 2.1 times,” he said in his speech at the Invest Malaysia conference. "With the further impending RM10 billion equity injection announced in the second stimulus package to be added later this year principally for the purpose of investing in high-multiplier projects, we are therefore well positioned to move into the second part of 2009 into a more offensive stance,” he said. However, Azman cautioned that while there was comfort in the comparative strength of the underlying companies’ fundamentals, it was prudent that in such turbulent markets such positive but unrealised market valuations need to be checked against realized accounting performance as well. For Khazanah’s audited results for 2008, it posted a modest realised profit before tax of RM128 million in spite of a severe fall and diminution in asset prices globally,” he said. In aggregate for the five years between 2004 and 2008 a total of RM5.7 billion of realised profits before tax has been achieved with a total of RM2.3 billion of dividends and tax paid to the Government. “This represents an increase of 16% and 228% respectively of the preceding nine years from Khazanah’s inception in 1994 to 2003; or in other words a not insignificant increase in a little more than half the previous time,” he said. Azman also commented on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s policy speech on June 30 that there should be a more optimal and balanced co-existence between government-linked companies (GLCs) and non-GLCs, where GLCs would need to divest non-core and non-competitive assets. “This to our minds, applies at both the GLC as well as the Khazanah level. Indeed, judicious and timely divestments can significantly add to value creation. In addition, in selected and more matured counters Khazanah has been gradually selling down stakes, especially through the issuance of exchangeable bonds or sukuks. “In this regard, in the last five years alone Khazanah has made divestments totaling RM12.6 billion locking in gains of RM3.6 billion over 20 transactions,” he said. Some of these sales such as Bintulu Port, PTP Port before that, RHB Bank, Tradewinds Hotels, and Time Dotcom have also resulted in a more efficient ownership structures that have allowed the new owners to gain more scale and/or enter into new and more efficient alliances. “Subject to value, we expect this trend of divestments through trade sales as well as reducing our stakes in large listed GLCs to continue and accelerate over the medium-term,” he said.
|
|||
|
|