Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Khazanah says timing of market to divest GLCs crucial

KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd has identified the government-linked companies which it plans to divest but this will hinge on the timing of the market recovery.

Managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said on Wednesday, Sept 14: "We have identified (the companies we intend to divest) but all kinds of analyses are still needed and we have to observe the timing in the case that things change".

He said Khazanah would hold off on divesting if the market was deemed to be weak and this would also depend on the companies' balance sheet.

"We will divest businesses that are non-core or non-competitive,an electricity or telecommunications company for example, should not have a travel business and others can perhaps do better," he said on the sidelines of Forbes Global CEO Conference.

Azman said Khazanah was currently in year seven of the 10-year GLC Transformation Programme and that Khazanah had been divesting "in quite a disciplined way".

Khazanah Nasional recently divested POS MALAYSIA BHD [] to DRB Hicom Bhd. "(POS) was reasonably competitive but we felt it would be more so under a new competitor and we got a good, fair price under the deal. Now it is up to them to raise value (for POS)," he said.

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