Maybank Islamic is on track to record RM1bn in pre-tax profit for its FY2012 by leveraging on its parent Maybank’s) global wholesale business and community financial services to carve its own niche in the market for Islamic finance. Maybank Islamic CEO Muzzaffar Hisham told StarBiz that healthy deposit levels, coupled with a growth in asset base with a good mixture of deposit and liabilities, would help to fuel the company’s growth. He said Maybank Islamic is well on track in achieving the target of one-third Islamic financing contribution to the group’s total domestic loans and advances by 2015. (StarBiz)
Bina Puri: Offers 10-year maintenance at Laman Vila
Bina Puri is offering 10 years’ free maintenance to homeowners for its Laman Vila residential project in Segambut. According to the company, this is made possible with project’s adoption of renewable energy. Solar panels will be installed on top of the houses and excess energy will be sold back to the national grid via the feed-in tariff scheme. The income from the sale of energy will be used to maintain common facilities in Laman Vila. (Financial Daily)
Warisan TC: Eyes 8% heavy truck mart
Angkatan Motor Sdn Bhd (ATMSB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warisan TC Holdings, expects to garner about eight% market share of the local heavy-duty trucks segment with the Malaysian launch of the AUMAN Heavy Duty Trucks. Warisan TC Holdings executive director Ngu Ew Look said the company is anticipating sales of about 260 units of AUMAN Heavy Duty Trucks over the next 12 months with an estimated sales contribution of RM50m. He said the company is also targeting to achieve an average sales growth of 20% over the next three years. (Business Times)
Naim Holdings: Expands into healthcare
Naim Holdings diversifies into the healthcare sector after entering into a JV agreement with KPJ Healthcare to design, build and operate a hospital in Sarawak. Naim Holdings said its wholly-owned unit, Naim Land Sdn Bhd (NLSB) has signed JV agreement with KPJ Healthcare unit Kumpulan Perubatan (Johor) Sdn Bhd (KPJSB) for a hospital project in Miri. The JV company will have an initial paid-up capital of RM19.67m. KPJSB will hold 70% of the JV company and NLSB the balance. KPJSB will be allotted the equity of the JV company via cash cash injection while NLSB will inject a 4-acre land into the company. (Financial Daily)
Silver Bird: Unit gets demand letter
Silver Bird Group’s wholly-owned subsidiary Standard Confectionery Sdn Bhd has received a letter from Shook Lin & Bok, the solicitors of Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB)demanding payment for an outstanding amount owed to the latter of RM19,635,638.72 including interests. The company said this default has already been announced on Apr 6 under Practice Note 1, adding that it was still in the midst of evaluating options to formulate a plan to address this default issue. Silver Bird is currently focusing its efforts on completing the current forensic investigations, while preserving the group’s value as a going concern and formalising schemes of arrangement to regularise its financial position. (StarBiz)
CMMT: 1Q FY2012 profit up 10%
Capitamalls Malaysia Trust's (CMMT) first quarter net profit rose 10% from a year earlier as the retail-based Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) registered higher revenue following the inclusion of the East Coast Mall in Kuantan to the group's portfolio. In a statement to the exchange on Thursday, CMMT said net profit came to RM34.44m against RM31.44m previously, while revenue was up 36% to RM71.4m from RM52.68m. Its portfolio includes Sungei Wang Plaza and The Mines in the Klang Valley, besides Penang's Gurney Plaza. The property trust plans to reward shareholders with a dividend of 2.09 sen a unit for the quarter. (Financial Daily)
Media: Adex growth to slow down in 2012
Media Specialists Association (MSA) president Raganathan Somanathan said that adex growth is expected to slow down in 2012 to about 8% to 10% from 12% in 2011. He said that businesses had been cautiously optimistic in 1Q 2012, adding that adex had slow down partly because there were many public holidays in the quarter. Raganathan added tha the lower growth forecast stemmed from media agencies that start to explore the earned emdia space such as social media sites, thus lowering the adex. (Financial Daily)
Oil & Gas: Petronas in talks with 10 potential investors for Rapid project
Petronas is talking to 10 potential investors and companies involved in the oil and gas related activities to set up their operations at its refinery and petrochemicals integrated development (Rapid) project. Rapid executive project director Wan Yusoff Wan Hamat said they came from all over the world and had shown strong interest to invest in the complex in Pengerang, Johor. The RM60bn complex is located in the southeast Johor and the proposed 300,000 barrels per day crude oil refinery capacity is larger than the combined capacities of Petronas' existing refineries in Malacca, Kertih and Gebeng. Wan Yusoff said it was vital to attract world-class, oil, gas and petrochemical companies to invest in the project as they would contribute to the country's aspiration to become a high-income nation by 2020. (StarBiz)
Oil & Gas: Investment decision on Rapid due mid-2013
Petronas will announce its final investment decision on the massive RM60bn Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid) project in Pengerang mid-2013. Rapid executive director Wan Yusoff Wan Hamat said the project is likely to proceed and come onstream in 2016 to turn Pengerang into the Asia-Pacific petrochemical hub. Wan Yusoff added that because of its potential, the project is highly likely to go as planned. (Financial Daily)
KPF ‘yes’ to Felda share transfer
Koperasi Permodalan Felda (KPF) voted overwhelmingly in favour of a corporate restructuring that will pave the way for the listing of Felda Global Ventures (FGVH). KPF holds a 51% stake in Felda Holdings, which controls all of the domestic agriculture businesses and other plantation-related business, while FGVH holds the remainder. KPF delegates yesterday voted in favour of transferring its 51% interest in Felda Holdings to FGVH. Felda Holdings will thus become a wholly-owned subsidiary of FGVH, which in turn will be 51%-owned by KPF and 49% held by the government. Felda Holdings made RM614.2m in profits in 2010 while FGVH made RM287.3m. (Financial Daily)
New HP guidelines hit Proton
Proton recorded a 14% y-o-y and 10% q-o-q dip in car sales in 1Q2012, attributing the decline to stricter Bank Negara (BNM) hire-purchase (HP) guidelines introduced in January 2012. Perodua also indicated the BNM new guidelines as the likely reason for its 11% drop in y-o-y sales. The new HP guidelines have made it harder for car buyers to get their loan applications approved with lower loan amounts. The entry-level segment customers are now faced with higher loan rejections and will potentially move to lower-priced cars, such as used cars or basic variants of A-segment models. (Malaysian Reserve)
Slower growth for local adex
The local advertising expenditure (adex) growth in Malaysia this year is expected to moderate slightly by 2% to reach an estimated RM12bn. Last year’s growth was 12%. Cautious market sentiment and growing focus on social media are said to be the main causes for the slower growth, said Media Specialist Association president Ranganathan Somanathan. The area growing the fastest are digital and pay-TV ads. Ranganathan said more marketers today are starting to explore the earned media space, in which they have to earn their audience, as opposed to the paid media space where they pay to engage audiences. (Malaysian Reserve)
Ta Ann proposes bonus issue
Ta Ann has proposed to undertake a 1-for-5 bonus issue of up to 61.79m shares. The proposed bonus issue would be implemented by capitalizing up to RM61.79m from the company’s retained earnings reserve. The bonus issue is expected to be completed in 2Q this year. (Financial Daily)
Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, said on Wednesday he had asked the new owners of Lotus to protect the future of the loss-making British sportscar maker, following speculation that production could be moved abroad. More than 1,000 Lotus workers fear Malaysian company DRB-HICOM is seeking a Chinese buyer for the firm, whose Esprit model found fame for spectacular cameos in James Bond movies. "I did raise this issue with the Malaysian Prime Minister and also with the new Malaysian owners of the parent company of Lotus," Cameron told parliament, following a trip to Asia last week. (Reuters)
DRB-HICOM Defence Technologies Sdn Bhd (Deftech) is spending about RM100m to expand its plants in Pekan, Pahang, and Nilai, Negri Sembilan, to cater for the production of 8x8 Armoured Wheeled Vehicle (AV8) for the Malaysian military, slated at end-2013. CEO Abdul Harith Abdullah said the construction of new facilities would start after the 13th Defence Services Asia 2012 (DSA 2012) and it should be ready for the first unit of sealed pattern (prototype) to arrive in Malaysia by September. Abdul Harith said the Pekan plant would manufacture the AV8’s hull (platform) while the Nilai plant would make its turret. (Starbiz)
Delima Oil Products Sdn Bhd, a member company of the Felda Global Group recorded its first over-RM1bn revenue last year, well ahead of its 2013 target, said chief executive officer Zakaria Arshad. Zakaria is confident that the performance can be sustained this year. Delima Oil is now eyeing the Philippines and Vietnam markets which will most likely see Delima Oil products on their supermarket shelves this year. The company is in talks with potential customers or distributors for its products in the Philippines, and may start with the Southern Philippines, due to its proximity to Sabah. "If all goes well and our products are well accepted here, like in Myanmar we will build our own packaging and bottling plant. The next step then, is to have our own refinery on a bigger scale," he said adding that such a strategy will be emulated in Vietnam. Delima Oil is also in the midst of negotiating with a party in Abu Dhabi to market its cooking oil in over 90 supermarket outlets there. "Our products no doubt are doing well in the Malaysian market, especially our Saji cooking oil which has over 30%share of the olein segment while our margarine, Seri Pelangi holds more than 50% market share. But now, we want to concentrate on high-end products as they give better margins and that means, there will be better quality margarines and other cooking oils like high grade blended oil, sunflower oil and canola oil," said Zakaria. (BT)
Small oil palm estate holders who want to plant oil palms are now entitled to a higher allocation from the government. Those who own 40ha or less are eligible for the replanting grant. As for new plantings, the incentive can only be accorded to those who own up to 5ha in Peninsular Malaysia and a maximum of 7ha for Sabah and Sarawak. Previously, the government allocated RM7,000/ha to smallholders who plant up oil palms. The government has raised the allocation to RM7,500/ha for oil palm land in Peninsular Malaysia. As for Sabah and Sarawak, it has been raised to RM9,000/ha. There are around 170,000 independent smallholders in Malaysia. With 700,000ha, they account for 14 per cent of the country's five million hectares of oil palm land. This year, the government expects smallholders to replant and plant up 40,000ha, with higher yielding seedlings. (BT)
It is premature to gauge the cost of the proposed high-speed rail (HSR) linking Kuala Lumpur and Singapore at this point of time, said Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) CEO Mohd Nur Ismal Mohamed Kamal. He said this when asked to comment on a news report yesterday quoting a source saying that the cost of the proposed HSR that has yet to get the green light from the Government would be between RM20-30bn. “We will have to wait until year-end when the detailed feasibility study is done to get a clearer picture,” he told StarBiz yesterday. Ismal said the key cost drivers of the HSR would be land acquisition, choice of HSR technology, the locations of alignment, bridges and tunnelling. At a SPAD editors' briefing on Wednesday, it was revealed that the HSR project was now in the second phase of a feasibility study that looked into the actual corridors and alignment. This is expected to be completed by year-end. This study will provide a more detailed economic impact of the HSR and its engineering challenges. A source said that the train slated for the proposed HSR was estimated to travel at an average speed 250km/h and was capable of reaching a maximum of 300km/h. Such speed would shorten the journey between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to 90 minutes with one or two stops for the express service. “For the transit services with four to six stops, the journey between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore is expected to be less than two hours. “The potential intermediate stops are Seremban, Melaka, Muar, Batu Pahat and Johor Baru,” said the source. (Starbiz)
CIMB Thai Bank Plc has posted a 22.2% yoy growth in net profit to THB344.1m (RM34.2ml) for its 1QFY12 mainly due to higher net interest as well as net fee and service income. CIMB Group Holdings Bhd said its 93%-owned Thai subsidiary’s total operating income increased by 14.3% to THB1.82bn (RM180.4m) in 1QFY12. CIMB Thai is a commercial bank with 159 branches in Thailand. CIMB Thai also said in a statement that during the quarter, gross non-performing loans (NPL) increased slightly to THB4.3bn (RM427m), with an equivalent gross NPL ratio of 3.6% from 3.4% in the 4QFY11, mainly due to the deterioration in credit quality of certain sizable accounts. (Starbiz)
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is said to have gone back to the drawing board to re-set its business plan, four months after it unveiled its new business plan. Those in the know claimed that the thrust forward was for the team to “re-engage and re-group the employees, re-boot and re-set the business plan because of several reasons and circumstances.” “They have to re-set according to priority. Eight months have passed and the visibility of change still seems vague. The need to re-set becomes critical as there is resistance to the way some things are being planned and done,” said a source. The need to re-engage with the “staff is vital as there is discontent and there are some valid reasons why there are pockets of people who are still unhappy. Some committees have been formed to address this,” said a source. The plan must also be reviewed because there are “certain constraints and some routes cannot be rationalised and there is also a need to revisit the cost reduction initiatives,” added the source. MAS saw the ent
ry of a new team after the share swap and collaboration agreement inked with AirAsia in August 2011. The team announced its business plan to turn MAS around on Dec 8. The team boldly outlined the turnaround in the form of “game changers' and “recovery plans.” The game changers include the launch of a new regional premium carrier by the middle of this year, exploring more alliances, enhancing collaboration with AirAsia, and spinning off its ancillary businesses, which include its maintenance, repairs and overhaul (MRO) unit. The new carrier is to link Malaysia with Asean, South Asia and Greater China. However, two weeks ago the airline said it would do away with the plan to set up a short haul airline and instead it would opt to park its short haul operations in a division. (Starbiz)
SP Setia Bhd will unveil its maiden project in Singapore called 18 Woodsville via a simultaneous launch in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta this weekend. This is the first time that SP Setia is doing such a simultaneous launch for a development. SP Setia said the simultaneous launch would be done in real time where interested purchasers would know exactly which units had been booked or were still available, regardless of which of the three cities they were in. The freehold 18 Woodsville consists of a 15-storey block with 101 units, and offers one, two and three-bedroom units with sizes ranging from 495-915sf. Prices start from S$1,500 (RM3,677) to S$1,950 (RM4,779) per sf. (Starbiz)
Berjaya Land Bhd (BLand) is building the world’s biggest integrated mall complex estimated to be worth about RM7.5bn on a 32ha site in China’s Hebei Province, says CEO Datuk Francis Ng Sooi Lin. Called Great Mall of China, the 18.5m sf development, which is similar to the concept of Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur, is expected to be completed within the next five years. Once completed, the project will feature more than 2m sf of retail space, two hotels, two serviced apartments, office towers, convention centre, theatre and a parking complex. Berjaya Great Mall of China Co Ltd (BGMOC), a 51%-owned subsidiary of BLand, is undertaking the development. Berjaya Group founder Tan Sri Vincent Tan holds 49% of BGMOC through Berjaya Times Square Cayman Ltd. Under the first phase development, BGMOC will build a retail and pedestrian mall, each with one million sq ft of space, an extreme park, a family park and a water park, as well as parking facilities. Ng said the gross development cost for phase one was estimated at RM1.5bn. Some 40% of Phase One had been completed and the remaining portion was expected to be completed by Oct-2013, Ng said. (BT)
The new ruling that mandates sharing of broadcasting rights with free-to-air (FTA) TV stations could end pay TV operator Astro Holdings Sdn Bhd's monopoly on certain sporting events. It will benefit FTA operators like Media Prima Bhd, said industry players and analysts who cover the sector. However, they said implementation of the ruling is key in order to ensure commercial viability. It will also allow FTA and pay TV players to jointly bid for expensive broadcasting licences. It is understood that Astro forks out US$60m (RM184m) per Barclays Premier League season for exclusive broadcasting rights. An industry insider said Astro purchases both the FTA and pay TV licenses, and subsequently resells the content to FTA stations. "This is to ensure that certain important matches can only be watched on Astro," he said. "The asking price for these licences has ballooned over the years. It is very expensive for the FTA players. However, if the government could force both pay TV and FTA platers to joint bid, the costs for each player would come down," said Sedania Group founder and CEO Datuk Azrin Mohd Noor. (Financial Daily)
Media Prima Bhd is always on the lookout for merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities locally and overseas, provided they compliment its existing operations, said group managing Director Datuk Amrin Awaluddin. Amrin said going regional made more sense. However, he pointed out that in South-East Asia, media industry was very much government centric like in Singapore and Indonesia. Amrin said that when Media Prima ventured overseas, it did not mean that the company would have to buy equity. "We have been very successful in our joint venture in Indonesia. We will continue to do that. We don't have to pump in any equity," he said, adding that NTV7 had done a lot of programmes for its partners in Indonesia and vice-versa. Amrin said the group planned to invest in content, distribution of contents as well as expansion into multiple platforms to increase its non-advertisement revenue. "We want to expand into other areas such as content and pay channels, online and mobile devices," he said, adding that it currently had pay channel available via Telekom Malaysia Bhd's UniFi. (StarBiz)
Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd, which is the adviser for Esso Malaysia Bhd (EMB) minority shareholders, has advised them to reject the takeover offer by Petron Corp, an affiliate of Philippines-based San Miguel Corp (SMC) so that they may benefit from the positive prospects of the oil and gas industry in which EMB operates in. Apart from this, the investment bank also noted that the offer price of RM3.59/share was not attractive following a few methods of financial evaluation, it told shareholders in a circular to Bursa Malaysia. Last month saw the completion of ExxonMobil International Holdings Inc’s disposal of its 65% stake in EMB to SMC. Consequently, SMC announced that its affiliate, Petron Corp, had submitted a mandatory takeover offer to acquire the remaining 35% at RM3.59 per share.(Starbiz)
Property developer Hua Yang Bhd is confident that the affordability of its products would attract prospective house buyers. "On the average our residential properties in Johor Baru are priced between RM250,000 and RM400,000 and this is our strong selling point," said Johor branch manager Soo Kim Hiang. Soo added that although the township project was located within Iskandar Malaysia, the company's price was much lower compared with other on-going projects in the economic growth corridor. (StarBiz)
No comments:
Post a Comment