Tuesday, July 24, 2012

20120724 1027 Malaysia Corporate Related News.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak presented Felda Group zakat (tithe) payment for the year 2011 amounting to RM30.6m to 14 state zakat collection centres here. The zakat comprised the payment of RM10m (as interim payment of tithe for half-year profit) from Felda Global Ventures Holdings, RM15.6m from Felda Holdings Berhad and RM5m from Felda Investment Cooperative. The zakat were presented to the centres through Menteris Besar, Chief Ministers and state Islamic religious councils at the breaking of fast event at Seri Perdana here. (Starbiz)

At least six companies are expected to submit their business plans to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) today, to bid for the rights to be the common integrated infrastructure provider (CIIP) for the rolling out of digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB). The entire cost of the project, including the cost of subsidising set-top boxes, is expected to be around RM900m (RM600m rollout and RM300m set-top box). “There was talk that the entire project could cost about RM2bn, but based on our estimation, we believe the cost (excluding set-top box) could potentially be much lower, perhaps in the range of RM500m-RM700m,” said an industry source familiar with the digital broadcasting industry. Based on the market talk, companies that have expressed interest in the DTTB job include Telekom Malaysia, Astro (Usaha Tegas), Sapura, Celcom Axiata, Puncak Semangat, and KUB Malaysia, with Maxis, REDtone International and YTL Group also believed to be keen in the job as well. The winner of the tender will build and operate the digital TV broadcast infrastructure for DTTB services so that all broadcasters such as RTM, Media Prima Bhd, Hijrah TV and others can ride on the infrastructure to transmit their TV programmes, radio and other online contents. "The eventual winner would need to subsidise 1m units of set-top boxes, presumably for the household of rural areas and lower-income group. The government has already announced that it would not be subsidising or partially subsidising the migration," said an industry player. (BT)

Malaysian Electronic Clearing Corp, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank Negara, has teamed up with three other banks and is working with another three to offer mobile banking services. It has tied up with Malayan Banking, CIMB Bank and Public Bank but will not disclose the names of the other three. Managing director Mohd Suhail Amar Suresh said it is currently piloting the mobile banking services with the first three banks in collaboration with Maxis, Celcom and Digi. (StarBiz)

Ekovest Bhd has secured two contracts worth RM253.3m to build the fourth lane along two stretches of the North-South Expressway. It said on Monday its unit Ekovest Construction Sdn Bhd had accepted two contracts from UEMB-MRCB JV Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Intria Urus Sdn Bhd) to undertake the projects. The first stretch was to build a fourth lane along a seven-km stretch between Bukit Lanjan and the Jalan Duta Toll Plaza.The second contract was to construct a fourth lane, stretching 5.2km, between the Nilai Utara interchange and Nilai. The contracts were for 24 months. (Starbiz)

AMMB Holdings has announced a final single-tier dividend of 13.5% for the financial year ended March 31. The payment date for the final dividend would be on Sept 10. (Star Biz)

Digistar Corp Bhd has proposed to undertake a private placement of up to 10% of its issued and paid-up share capital. As at July 18, the total issued share base for Digistar was 231.7m ordinary shares, with 90m outstanding warrants, it said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia yesterday. (BT)

Container handling and transshipment at Malaysian ports both saw a close to 5% rise for 1H12 with Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas Port emerging as the busiest ports. Malaysian ports handled 10.34m teus containers for 1H12. Transshipment handling grew to 6.93m teus, from 6.61m teus. (Malaysian Reserve)

Faber Group is hoping that is hospital support services (HSS) contract with the Government will be resolved after Advance Pact Sdn Bhd had inked a 21.5 year HSS agreement for a new hospital in Kuantan last week. Based on sources, Health Ministry officials had paid a visit to Faber’s plant in Bukit Beruntung and had personally conveyed their assurance that the renewal of the HSS contract would be granted to Faber eventually. (Star Biz)

Tanjung Offshore Bhd has declared a tax-exempt special dividend, which will range from RM0.35-RM0.44. It said on Monday the final tax-exempt special dividend per share would be determined and announced on Aug 3 and the ex-date would be on Aug 9. Tanjung Offshore said based on the paid-up (excluding 2.47m treasury shares) as well as the outstanding 30.6m warrants 2006/2016; 408m warrants 2008/2013 and 4.0m options under the employees share option scheme as at June 29, the minimum and maximum amount of tax-exempt special dividend would be 35 sen and 44 sen per share. (Starbiz)

Inari Bhd plans to issue 84.2m new shares to raise RM30.3m to partly fund the acquisition of a Philippines company, Amertron Inc (Global) Ltd. Inari had on Monday signed a S&P agreement to acquire 100% of Amertron for US$32m (RM101.8m). Inari, an electronic manufacturing services (EMS) provider, will also issue 11.5m redeemable preference shares with 34.6m free five-year warrants, anticipated to raise about US$11.5m (RM36.6m). Shareholders will be entitled to two free warrants for every rights share subscribed and both these exercises would raise the 90% cash portion needed to acquire the company, said Inari Managing Director Dr Tan Seng Chuan. The remaining 10% will be also satisfied via issuance of new shares, he said, adding that the acquisition of Amertron, also an EMS company, is expected to be completed in six months. Amertron Global, which specialises in manufacturing of optoelectronic modules with final products including LED displays and fibre optic modules, owns three plants, two in the Philippines and one in China.Amertron Global President Richard Wang said the company produces 500m parts yearly and in 2011, its adjusted net tangible assets stood at US$32m, while turnover touched US$120.8m. (Bernama)

Fujitsu Malaysia is projecting a 26-30% revenue growth for the financial year ending March 31, 2013, with substantial contribution from the public sector and multinational business. Its President Charles Lew said the outlook for FY2012 is expected to be positive in Malaysia despite the softening global economy as the Japan-based technology company would focus on high-margin products and services and branding. Lew said there are new opportunities of growth, such as in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) business segment which Fujitsu hopes to tap into, with the adoption of cloud computing which provides more competitive costs for lower scale businesses. (Bernama)

Hyundai-Sime Darby Motors has received 5,000 bookings for its MD Elantra car since its launch on April 8. To date, 1,570 units of the car are already on Malaysian roads. The MD Elantra was also named the “Car of The Year” by Asian Auto in 2012. (Bernama)

MMC Corporation: PAAB snubs offer for JV
Pengurusan Aset Air Bhd (PAAB) confirmed that MMC Corporation has made an unsolicited offer for the two to establish a JV to own the country’s water assets. In a brief reply to questions from The Edge Financial Daily, PAAB confirmed that it attended a presentation on the possibility of co-owning the water assets by executives from MMC. However, PAAB said it is not seeking a partner to own the water assets. Nevertheless, PAAB added that there was no deadline given for it to revert to MMC on its offer. (Financial Daily)

Axiata: Likely to eye telecom license Myanmar
Market watchers said Axiata Group is likely to be eyeing a telecoms license that may be available soon in Myanmar. In a rare interview with the Financial  Times a fortnight ago, Myanmar President Thein Sein named the telecoms, IT and technology sector as among areas the country would need knowledge from outside as well as foreign investment. (Financial Daily)

AirAsia: Source says low cost carrier to terminate collaboration agreement with MAS
A source says low-cost carrier AirAsia wants to opt out of all JV agreements with national carrier Malaysia Airlines (MAS). According to the source, AirAsia decided at a board meeting last week that it would seek to terminate its agreements with MAS soon. AirAsia group CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said no comment when queried about the matter through text messages, while calls and text messages to AirAsia Malaysia CEO Aireen Omar went unanswered. MAS CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya did not respond to a text message to him. A termination of the memorandum of understandings (MOUs) between AirAsia and MAS would effectively wipe out the remnants of a deal between Khazanah Nasional Bhd and Tune Air Sdn Bhd that had gone awry. (Business Times)

Puncak Niaga: Cabinet panel rejects Selangor government bid for Syabas
The Special Cabinet Committee (SCC) on the Selangor Water Issue has rejected the proposed takeover of Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas) by the Selangor government. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhiyiddin Yasin said the takeover could not be done as the state government did not comply with the concession agreement, including allowing a water tariff hike. (Financial Daily)

Muhibbah Engineering: To diversify income streams
Muhibbah Engineering hopes to improve its recurring income base by intensifying its focus on build, operate and transfer projects in the oil and gas sector in the Asean region. The group is also looking at project management contracts (PMCs) in the oil and gas sector to reduce its reliance on contracting works, said its business development director Mac Chung Jin. He added that margins for contracting works are very cyclical these days. There is currency fluctuation when you go abroad and there is also price fluctuation. When oil price goes up, everything else does, too. Due to that, many have started to move away from being pure contractors. There are talks by Petronas to go into marginal fields, which is a good sign of positive things happening. (Business Times)

MTD ACPI Engineering: Lands contract worth RM303.2m
MTD ACPI Engineering has secured a  contract worth RM303.2m to construct a fourth lane between the Sungai Buloh and Rawang interchange. In a filing Monday, the company said its unit MTD Construction Sdn Bhd had accepted the contract from UEMB-MRCB JV Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Intria Urus Sdn Bhd) on July 18. It said the contract would involve the building of a fourth lane between Sungai Buloh (km457.0) and the Rawang interchange (km443.9) package C. The company said package C comprised of all work from southbound and northbound inclusive of the drain and guardrails. MTD ACP said the contract was worth RM303.2m, including provisional sum of RM13.6m and prime cost sum of RM127m for duration of 30 months. (Financial Daily)

No comments: