Wednesday, March 7, 2012

20120307 1025 Malaysia Corporate Related News.

Speculation is rife that former Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Tan Ang Meng has been approached to helm troubled bread and confectionary maker Silver Bird Group Bhd. Banking sources said Ang Meng's name was among several that cropped up for consideration for the group managing director's position. (StarBiz)

Tune Money is speculated to be one of the candidates to acquire the controlling stake of 74.16% in Oriental Capital Assurance (OCA) from G Team Resources & Holdings. The deal is in the process and should be finalised soon. Bank Negara has already given its green light. The insurance company would provide Tune Money with a stronger platform in the industry and allow it to underwrite the insurance businesses of the Tune Group. (Star Biz)

Kimlun has secured a contract worth RM68.29m from United Malayan Land for the construction of apartments and ancillary buildings in Johor Bahru. The construction work will boost Kimlun’s book order to about RM1.5bn. (Star Biz)

Ngiu Kee Corp Bhd, a financially-distressed operator of supermarkets and departmental stores, says Bursa Securities has rejected its plan to revive its finances. The company faces a delisting if it does not come up with a suitable plan but it said it would submit an appeal on the Bursa decision within a month. (BT)

Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp is close to a deal to sell 60% of its banking unit to CIMB Group, with the two agreeing on a final price, the chairman of Bank of Commerce said yesterday. The deal, expected to be finalised this month, will provide San Miguel with fresh funds to close its US$610m purchase of ExxonMobil Corp’s Malaysian assets or new acquisitions such as Philippine Airlines. (Reuters)

Tan Chong Motor Holdings 70%-owned subsidiary, Tan Chong Motor Assemblies, has entered into an agreement to assemble passenger vehicles for TC Subaru. The agreement took effect from yesterday to Dec 31, 2013, with an option for extension. The expected total assembly charges and fees for the term was estimated at RM30.22m. (Star Biz)

HSL: Buys 275-acre land in Samariang for RM25.5mil. Hock Seng Lee Bhd's (HSL) property arm has acquired a 275-acre land in Kuching's northern township of Samariang for RM25.55 million cash. The land is planned for mixed development called Samariang Aman 3, which would generate an estimated gross development value of about RM700 million, its managing director Datuk Paul Yu Chee Hoe said today. He said the proposed project will comprise 1,500 landed residential homes consisting of semi-detached, quadruplex and terraced houses, 2,000 units of affordable housing and 40 units of commerical shophouses. "We anticipate works for Samariang Aman 3 to commence in 2013 and the development will take six to eight years," he said in a statement. (Source: The Star)

PETRONAS: Petronas, BASF seal RM4b pact. Petronas and BASF have taken the next step forward towards realising the announced RM4 billion investment that will expand their partnership in Malaysia. The partnership involves projects at their existing ventures in Kuantan and at a new site within Petronas' proposed Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) complex in Pengerang, Johor. These projects are to be implemented between 2015 and 2018. (Source: Business Times)

Perodua may cut production capacity as a last resort if sales continue to decline owing to stricter conditions on hire purchase loans for cars. Its MD Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh said Perodua was also looking at other measures to address the issue. (Bernama, Malaysian Reserve)

Perodua says it is beginning to see signs of improvement on its sales after experiencing one of the biggest monthly declines early this year. Sales of Perodua models reportedly dropped 11% in January, partly due to higher rejection rates of loan applications following new lending guidelines from Bank Negara Malaysia. The loan application process, which in the past could be approved in as early as one working day, had lengthened to about a week in some cases follow the introduction of the new guidelines in January. "Based on the feedback from our dealers, we are seeing an improvement in the situation now," said Perodua managing director Datuk Aminar Rashid Salleh. (BT)

Takaful Malaysia: Nears deal on Indonesian stake sale. Kuala Lumpur: Syarikat Takaful Malaysia Bhd (Takaful Malaysia) is close to selling a stake in its Indonesian unit to a local partner to expand its distribution network in the republic. Group managing director Datuk Hassan Kamil said the insurer will consider issuing new shares as well. "We recently got another enquiry from a very large local insurance group. They are a close-knit family-run conglomerate," Hassan told Business Times in an exclusive interview recently. (Source: Business Times)

PPB: Sets 3-year capex of RM507m to boost growth. PPB Group Bhd has put aside some RM507 million as capital expenditure (capex) for this year till 2014. The bulk of the capex will go to its grains trading and flour and feed milling businesses managed by its wholly-owned subsidiary FFM Bhd. For this year alone, PPB Group managing director Tan Gee Soi said the company was looking at a capital commitment of up to RM350 million, especially with the launching of new property projects and operation of some of the flour mills in China. (Source: Business Times)

Dijaya Corp: Gets new assets from Danny Tan. Dijaya Corp Bhd will acquire 73 properties held by its largest shareholder Tan Sri Danny Tan for RM949mil, to be satisfied by RM250mil in cash and the issuance of 10-year 2% coupon redeemable convertible unsecured loan stocks over 10 years. It has proposed an equity fund raising of a renounceable rights issue of up to 491 million new shares at RM1.20 each and a bonus issue of up to 122.83 million shares. (Source: The Star)

Power: Petronas will not pay anymore compensation to TNB. Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has clarified that it will not be paying anymore compensation to Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) for the cost of alternative fuel used by the national power utility. Its president and chief executive officer Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas said the payment (RM1 billion) was supposed to be a "one-off" affair. (Source: The Star)

Timber: Malaysia's timber and timber product exports to rise this year. Malaysia's exports of timber and timber products in 2012 is expected to be better than last year, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said today. He said Malaysia exported timber and timber products valued at RM19.8 billion last year and furniture products accounted for RM6.46 billion or 32.6 per cent of total exports. To sustain timber supply, he said, the government had earmarked large scale forest plantations, with 375,000 hectares to be planted over a 15-year period with an allocation of RM1 billion. (Source: The Star)    

Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD), which intends to offer innovative options for palm oil futures, plans to introduce dollar-denominated palm olein futures contracts sometime this year. "With this offering, refineries can now hedge the refining margin between crude palm oil (CPO) and palm olein," said Bursa Malaysia Bhd chairman Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin Haji Abdullah. (The Sun Daily)

Bursa Malaysia is banking on cross-border links with other bourses in Southeast Asia to grow instead of costly mergers and acquisitions. The exchange operator’s plan to link up with the Singapore Exchange in mid-2012, followed by Thailand in August, will attract investors to the region that is seen as an emerging market darling, said CEO Datuk Tajuddin Atan. (Reuters)

SapuraCrest Petroleum has received a letter of award from Petronas Carigali for the provision of a tender rig, known as T-9. The project was valued at about US$54m (RM163.4m) including mobilisation fee. (Star Biz)

Technical evaluation stage for the tunnelling scope of MRT SBK line has been completed. Of the total five contenders for the job, only three parties have qualified to proceed to the next stage, being the commercial evaluation. The companies are (i) Gamuda-MMC JV, (ii) Taiseh Corp of Japan, and (iii) one of the two Chinese bidders either Sinohydro or China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC). The companies which were eliminated had various technical issues including the number of tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to be deployed. The commercial evaluation stage is slated to commence by mid Mar-12, with the award to be made shortly after. (Financial Daily)

YTL Communications Sdn Bhd is moving closer to profitability with the launch of its Unlimited Super Postpaid Plans. The company is targeting to get 500k subscribers for the new plans by the end of this year bringing its total Yes subscribers close to 1m, the break-even figure for the company. The Yes Unlimited Super Postpaid Plans comprise four plans with monthly subscription ranging RM48-168. All plans come with unlimited data usage, speed of 20 Mbps and free Yes devices (with commitment). CEO Wing K. Lee said the company was not ruling out any merger and acquisition plans should they make sense. He said, “We are in continuously in discussion with companies, we could do it if it makes sense.” (Star Biz)

Datuk Tong Kooi Ong has taken up a 26.92% stake in Singapore-based paper products manufacturer, UPP Holdings Ltd, a company controlled by Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim Eng Hock. Tong acquired 156.786 million shares in the company, marking his first acquisition of a Singapore-listed vehicle. (Financial Daily)

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