Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Khazanah shortlists 3 for stake in Pos

The three are DRB-HICOM, Nationwide Express Courier Services and a joint venture between Amanah Reit and loss-making Malaysia Pacific.
Khazanah Nasional Bhd has shortlisted three companies to buy its 32.21 stake in Pos Malaysia Bhd (4634), the country's sole national postal service company, people familiar with the tender process said yesterday.

Business Times understands that the shortlisted parties will make a second and final presentation today.

The three are DRB-HICOM Bhd, Nationwide Express Courier Services Bhd and a joint venture between Amanah Reit Bhd and loss-making Malaysia Pacific Corp Bhd.

Two other companies had also placed bids for Pos Malaysia, namely Scomi Bhd and Tricubes Bhd.
Most of the bidders had placed a RM15 million deposit, and the money will be returned to the rejected bidders.

Bidders who have qualified and have eventually been selected to buy the stake risk losing their deposit if they cannot come up with the financing to acquire the stake.

The shortlisted companies were notified on Friday and yesterday that they will be making their presentation to representatives of Khazanah and McKinsey & Co, who are advising the government's investment arm on the share sale exercise.

While most of the bids were based on cash and how they can leverage on Pos Malaysia's landbank, it is understood that one of the bids involves injecting a bank into the postal company.


It is further understood that the shortlisted candidates for the stake had bid between 2.2 times and three times of Pos Malaysia's book value per share, which stood at RM1.54 as at end-December 2010.

Pos Malaysia shares closed at RM3.32 yesterday, valuing Khazanah's 32.21 per cent stake at about RM574.28 million.

The shares were actively traded yesterday due to knee-jerk reactions on news that Pos Malaysia was proposing to pay a special dividend of 7.5 sen on top of a final dividend of 10 sen a share.

For its financial year ended December 31 2010, Pos Malaysia recorded sales of RM1.01 billion, while net profit stood at RM67.11 million.

At the group level, Pos Malaysia has small gearing, with the total debt level at about RM40 million. - By Francis Fernandez of btimes.com.my

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