20120905 1009 Malaysia Corporate Related News.

The  Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group, an influential shareholder group has raised concerns about the impending IPO of  Astro Holdings but market watchers dispute its analysis. "Our grouses still remain with regard to the listing and delisting exercises currently being done by many Malaysian conglomerates," its head Rita Benoy Bushon said in the association's latest newsletter. She said that if Astro was floated at RM3.60 per share as has been reported, it would be valued at RM18.7bn, a price far exceeding the RM8.3bn it cost to take it private. Analyst Salvatore Dali notes, the pricing in 2010 was never disputed. "The price was a significant premium to the average trading price for the past six months before the privatisation offer," he said in his financial blog on investment. "You should not put a claim that it is now valued much higher now." Ms Bushon also seemed miffed that the proceeds of "around two-thirds of the IPO" would go to the major owner and not the company. Mr Dali was unmoved by that. "One would be more concerned if it was an absolutely new listing or a young company," he noted. "This is a mature business, growth is not going to be spectacular. One may even argue that Astro may be churning good cash flow which would not have needed much more capital investment." Ms Bushon was also vexed about the portion allocated for retail investors (2%), arguing for a way out. "We hope the advisers and the company would consider allowing the clawback provision from other portions, including cornerstone investors, if there is an oversubscription of the retail portion," she said. (SBT)

EPF has dismissed talk that it is planning to sell its entire stake in MRCB, "It is not true that we are selling our stake in MRCB. We are still holding it for now," an official said. Speculation has been rife that EPF is looking to dispose of its stake in MRCB, the reason being the company has not won any major government projects since a year ago. The last big win for MRCB was in August 2011 when it won a RM1.3bn contract for the Ampang LRT extension project. (BT)

MRT Corp has denied accusations that it had sidelined members of the Malay Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (DPMM) in awarding of contracts to Bumiputera contractors. CEO Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid said some packages of the project were exclusive to Bumiputera companies and some Bumiputera companies had also won in the open category. "Furthermore, all these packages were open for competitive bidding so the issue of sidelining cannot arise at all," he said. He pointed out that as at end of July, more than 17 packages worth RM7.6b from the MRT SBK line were offered to Bumiputera companies. (BT)

The creditors of  Asia Petroleum Hub have sought the assistance of the government in their bid to salvage the stalled petroleum hub and bunkering facilities.  Executives close to the creditors, including  CIMB Bank, said their representatives together with the receiver and manager met up with the Ministry of Transport officials earlier this week with a view to getting the greenlight to change the shareholders of APH. (Financial daily)

Felda and  KFC Holdings (M) Bhd  (KFCH) unit,  Ayamas Integrated Poultry Industry Sdn Bhd (Ayamas IPI), have set up a joint-venture company to run a modern broiler farm in Tenggaroh, Johor. The joint-venture company, 49% owned by Felda and 51% by Ayamas IPI, was part of the authority's effort to encourage more settlers, especially the new generations, to get involved in other viable agro-based business. Under the agreement, Felda will manage the selection of workers who will be trained by Ayamas IPI. Ayamas IPI will undertake overall management of the project and build modern poultry pens and other infrastructure for the farm and management aspects of running the farm. (StarBiz)

AirAsia is adding three more aircraft to its operating fleet by leasing them from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). The lease term will start in the fourth quarter and last for 12 years. AirAsia is expecting 21 A320 aircraft to be delivered this year, with another 21 next year. AirAsia's CEO Aireen Omar also said, "Earnings are going to be strong. Jet fuel prices have been lower. You will see the impact in the third quarter because of the lagging effect. Also, we do have  Malaysia Airports incentives this year but we haven't booked them in yet. We are in negotiation with MAHB to secure the incentives," she added. (Financial Daily)

AirAsia may take over Serbia's state-owned  JAT Airways, according to a Serbian newspaper Vercernje Novosti. AirAsia may make a bid for the unprofitable airline as it may decide to use the Serbian capital as its regional hub for flights to Asia. (Malaysian Reserve)

DRB-HICOM has appointed Datuk Mohamed Razeek Md Hussain as its chief operating officer - services and properties, effective September 1 2012.  Group managing director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil said Mohamed Razeek's appointment came at an opportune time as the company positions itself for continued growth while managing the diversity of its business activities. (BT)

The  Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association of Malaysia (REHDA) is requesting the government to establish a structured mechanism for housing developers to automatically release unsold properties allocated for Bumiputera buyers.Its president, Datuk Seri Michael K.C. Yam, said REHDA has never complained about allocating a significant portion for Bumiputera buyers in each development project as it is part of the basic principle of local developers but at the moment, the unsold Bumiputera properties are causing harm to housing developers' cash flow moving forward. "We are asking for a very structured mechanism. Maybe six months after a project receives Certificate of Fitness and the Bumi allocation is unsold, we can release it to other buyers. (Starbiz)

The  property market is showing signs of cooling even as developers and homebuyers take sides over the critical issue of housing affordability and the government mulls further steps to make it easier for Malaysians to own a home ahead of a crucial general election. The home loan approval rate has dipped nearly seven percentage points in the first half of the year to 46.8% from 50.1% during the same period last year. The trend is indicative of the residential market cooling following tightening measures by Bank Negara, Malaysia Property Inc, a government agency in charge of marketing Malaysian property abroad, said today. Despite official statistics pointing to flattish growth in property prices since last year, many Malaysians are feeling fed-up over what they feel are continued unreasonable surges in house prices driven by market greed and warn of social consequences and even a potential backlash at the polls. There are indications that the government is poised to take more fiscal measures to tackle affordability following previous tightening measures, such as a slight increase in real property gains tax, a cap on the loan-to-value ratio and efforts to curb household debt such as basing loans on net income rather than gross income. (Malaysian Insider)

DiGi introduced new 'Easy Prepaid', a new prepaid plan that offers 24-hour free calls, short message service (SMS) and Facebook access."They can interact with three Buddyz freely at zero charges within their self-created 'mini community of four' via phone calls, SMS and Facebook," said DiGi. Its head of prepaid, Ting Shiew Han, said with 80% of Malaysian mobile subscribers being prepaid users, DiGi was leading the charge to address their needs by delivering the best value in the market with relevant and richer mobile features that consumers could truly appreciate. "DiGi has a strong brand affinity with youths and is confident that this vibrant market segment will find our latest proposition appealing." (Bernama)

Time dotCom launched TIME Fibre 100Mbps Home Broadband, Malaysia’s fastest home broadband service with speeds up to 100Mbps. TIME’s package offers 100Mbps priced at RM179/mth. The maximum speed currently offered in Malaysia is just 30Mbps. TIME’s fibre optic network reaches approximately 100,000 homes in the Klang Valley and Penang. (Time dotCom)

Firefly is negotiating to buy new planes to fuel the airlines' robust expansion plans two years from now, CEO  Ignatius Ong said. He said the airline is keeping its options open on the range of aircraft, which might be bigger than the turboprops currently. "If Firefly buys bigger aeroplanes, it can shift its focus to medium-haul routes from the current short-haul destinations," he said. (Financial Daily)

Malaysian rubber glove manufacturers will investRM300-500m over the next five years to automate their manufacturing operations in order to reduce the dependence on foreign workers and increase productivity. This could help reduce the number of foreign workers by 30-50% according to the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA). (Sun Biz)

The  Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (MARGMA) has appealed to the government to accord tax breaks for glove makers who aggressively reinvest to automate production lines and develop more innovative gloves for use in the medical sector. (BT)

Digistar Corporation has fixed the issue price for the private placement of 22.4m new shares of 10 sen each at 32.5 sen each. It said the issue price for the placement shares was a discount of 9.47% to the five-day weighted average market price of the shares up to and including Sept 3 of 35.9 sen. Digistar's private placement is part of its fund-raising exercise. The private placement will enable it to raise RM7.28m. (StarBiz)

Favelle Favco has received orders to supply offshore cranes to P.T. Pal Indonesia (Persero)-Offshore Oil Engineering Co Ltd and Favelle Favco Cranes Pty Ltd Technip France for RM89.6m. (BT)

Petron Corp has no intention of de-listing the Malaysian entity it bought into last year and still holds the view that it did not underpay for the asset. "De-listing is not a need but we may consider it if there is an opportunity later," Petron's chairman and CEO Ramon S, Ang said. Petron had acquired 65% in Esso Malaysia Bhd (EMB) in March at a price of RM3.50 which had disappointed some shareholders who had chased the stock up to RM5.84 prior to the announcement of the deal. (StarBiz)

Kimlun has submitted fresh job tenders worth several hundred million ringgit and is expecting to replenish its current orderbook of RM1.8bn with these jobs. "We expect some results within the next three months, our track record is that we normally get 20% of what we've tendered for," its CEO Sim Tian Liang said. (Star Biz)