Wednesday, March 24, 2010

20100324 0944 Malaysia Corporate News.

A month after Alliance Bank Malaysia group CEO Datuk Bridget Lai resigned, two other top executives have submitted their resignations. Alliance Bank said the two were Sachi Ratnajoothy, executive vice president / CEO of Alliance Investment Bank and head of financial markets at Alliance Bank as well as Lok Eng Hong, the head of dealing, equity markets at Alliance Investment Bank. A source close to the bank said the resignations of Sachi and Lok were not related to Lai’ departure. (StarBiz) Any further resignations of key personnel in the bank would be, to certain extent, negative for the earnings prospects of the group, especially after the departures of the group CEO and COO.

Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major commended Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for his candour and being straightforward with foreign fund managers here in outlining the state of the Malaysian economy and listening to their concerns.
  • "Malaysia is in very good hands indeed, based on what the Malaysian Prime Minister has been telling foreign fund managers at the Credit Suisse Asian Investment conference here Tuesday and his commitment to change Malaysia into a truly developed economy," he said. 
  • Major, a special adviser to Credit Suisse, was addressing a dinner function hosted by CIMB and the financial services group where Najib was guest of honour after the highlevel conference which brought together some 100 top-notch regional fund managers.
  • Najib had back-to-back meetings with fund managers as well as captains of industry and delivered a keynote address at a luncheon which was moderated by Major.
  • Najib said he took cognizance of what changes fund managers wanted to see in the Malaysian capital market. The Prime Minister said that after intense deliberations with the fund managers, he had a good sense now of how they perceived Malaysia.
  • He said it was crucial to make them understand why Malaysia needed to be more competitive, stronger economically and thereafter emerge as an attractive investment destination. "This is what the New Economic Model (NEM) is all about, which will set the future direction in terms of the economic transformation of Malaysia," he said.
  • Najib said that the NEM, to be unveiled on March 30, should be nothing short of a transformation and should not be merely an incremental change. "I believe we should move right across the board so that there is a massive transformation of Malaysia in due course," he said.
  • To this end, he called on foreign fund managers to invest in Malaysia for the long haul and expressed confidence that the country would emerge as an exciting prospect for them and the investors. (Bernama)
Khazanah Nasional will explore international acquisitions in Asia instead of high-profile purchases of Western companies, said Azman Mokhtar, managing director of the Malaysian state investment agency yesterday.
  • It will target buying opportunities in South-east Asia, especially Indonesia and Singapore, as well as in China, India and the Middle East, Mr Azman said outside a Credit Suisse Group AG-sponsored conference. 
  • Khazanah currently makes 12% of its investments outside Malaysia, rising from zero five years ago. International operations of companies it has stakes in, such as the country's second-largest bank CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, will take the percentage to about 20%, he said.
  • 'It's a gradual approach,' Mr Azman said. 'It will continue to rise.' Khazanah as 'a sovereign development fund' and its international investments will be more geographically focused because of the company's mandate, he said. (SBT)
CIMB-Principal Asset Management aims to manage assets worth RM30bn by year-end, as it is confident that the total asset value under its care is poised to expand by some 30% this year. CIMB-Principal, a joint venture between CIMB Group and US-based Principal Financial Group, managed funds worth RM22.1bn as of last year. (BT)

The resignation of EON Capital's chairman Tan Sri Syed Anwar Jamalullail and Yeo Kar Peng is now official with the central bank's clearance. Bank Negara's has only approved only two out of four independent directors who resigned last week to leave.
  • This is to meet Bank Negara Malaysia's ruling that at least a third of the company's board is made up of independent directors. Meanwhile, Datuk Dr Mohd Shahari Ahmad Jabar and Rodney Gordon Ward will stay, probably until the new independent directors recently appointed by EONCap's shareholders are approved by Bank Negara. It is understood that the central bank has left it to the four to decide who will stay for the moment, just to ensure a functional board at all times. 
  • In a separate statement, EONCap said it was unaware of any discussions concerning the sale of a stake in the company by any of its shareholders to a group of private investors from Abu Dhabi.(BT)
Mah Sing Group is looking for land in Sabah to build residential homes and villas for foreign buyers interested in the "Malaysia My Second Home" (MM2H) programme. Group MD Tan Sri Leong Hoy Kum said the company was seeking land in Kota Kinabalu to develop into a mixed range of properties, including villas and residential homes.
  • "We decided on Sabah because we find that many foreigners are interested to buy properties there." The group is on track to meeting its RM1bn sales target for the year through several property developments in the Klang Valley, Penang and Johor. 
  • We are on track to achieving our sales target, based on our performance in the first three months of this year during which we hit RM516m. That is 3x more than the RM170m sales achieved in the same period in 2009," Leong said.
  • The group also plans to acquire at least 405ha in prime areas in Selangor and Johor Baru. "We have bought two pieces of land since the beginning of the year and are looking for more land to buy, especially in prime locations in Selangor." Mah Sing has a GDV and unbilled sales of RM6bn, which provides earnings visibility for about six to eight years. (BT)
Malaysian contractors are making inroads abroad, having directly been involved in 614 construction projects worth US$24.3bn (RM81bn) in several countries, Works Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said. "Of these, 489 projects worth US$9.3bn have been completed, while the remaining 125 projects are under construction," he said.
  • He said local construction-based professional services companies have also shown remarkable performance globally, whereby out of 361 firms registered with the ministry's Professional Services Development Corp, 109 have started to make inroads, being involved in 412 overseas projects. "Of these, 208 projects that the local professional service providers are involved in have been completed," he said. (BT)
The government will review any proposals for sports betting in Malaysia, said PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak. "There are proposals but we'll see first," he said. It was reported that sports betting may soon be legalised in Malaysia. The Berjaya Group is seeking approval from the authorities to operate sports-betting activities in the country. (NST)

Globetronics will spend between RM60-70m as part of plans to boost the group's presence in the global light-emitting diode (LED) market. The company is spending on technology investment, capacity expansion and research and development (R&D) this year.
  • This is part of the company’s plans to boost its presence in the global light-emitting diode (LED) market, said CEO Heng Huck Lee. This is also in line with Malaysia's aim to replace all traditional light bulbs by 2014 to LED, compact fluorescent lamps and fluorescent tubes due to their energy-efficient and environment-friendly nature. 
  • Globetronics sees LED as its main source of growth, as it already supplies to the world's top five multinational light bulb companies. It ventured into LED in 2000 when it bought over ISO Technology S/B. Today, the LED business contributes about 20% of the group's revenue, or about RM100m a year, and it is slated to grow by 15% annually. By 2012, the global LED market is projected to reach a value of US$10bn with an average annual growth of between 20-25%. Countries such as Australia and Japan are already putting a ban on incandescent light bulb beginning this year. (BT)
Volkswagen Group Malaysia expects to finalise its plans to set up an assembly plant for its completely-knocked-down (CKD) models in Malaysia by first half of this year. Its MD, Andreas Prinz, said the company was currently considering various options, including local partners as well as the plant site.
  • "Once finalised, it will take us about 15 to 18 months to set up our plant," he added. He said the plant would assemble CKD Volkswagen models for the local as well as the Asian markets. (Bernama)
Sindora Bhd, a Johor Corp subsidiary, is going into biotechnology in a big way, following its 60% equity acquisition of bio-fertiliser manufacturer Microwell. For starters, Sindora, which has eight companies under its belt, is setting up a RM36m biofertiliser factory in Bandar Tenggara, Johor, by mid-2011. Sindora chairman Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim said the company's move into biofertiliser would help reduce its dependency on imported fertilisers. (BT)

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