Monday, August 28, 2006

MAJULAH SINGAPURA PT 10

But why 4.9 per cent?
update:
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia's state investment arm, bought 4.9 percent of Pantai Holdings Bhd., the country's operator of private hospitals, a stock exchange filing showed.

Khazanah, through its fully-owned unit Pantai Irama Ventures Sdn., bought 25.3 million Pantai shares from the open market on Aug. 21, the filing said today. The stake is worth 63.5 million ringgit ($17.3 million) based on its last traded price of 2.51 ringgit on Aug. 25. The stock was halted today.

About 4.3 percent of Pantai shares change hands in off- market trades valued at 50.8 million ringgit on Aug. 21.

QUESTION: Why oh Why oh Why suspend the counter when you are buying a mere 4.9 per cent of the company? I may have left Business Times and business reporting for too long. But if anyone can tell me the logic of suspending the counter to buy an insignificant 4.9 per cent of Pantai, please take the floor.


Original posting
Suspended.
Bursa Malaysia has suspended Pantai Holdings. Last traded price RM2.51. Khazanah is likely to buy out the Singaporeans and make them RM300m-RM400m richer.

After that, who gets Pantai?

16 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:36 pm

    Its really fascinating of this Bolehland.

    Just last nite, it was reported that the Chad government ask the foreign investor in their country (Petronas) to leave the country within 24 hours for apparently non-fulfilment of their corporate tax obligations.

    But in this Bolehland, an investor has violated certain obligations, and yet allowed to milk us for almost one year and allow to talk big.


    And the fascinating part is, our Khazanah is rumoured to bail this foreigner out.

    Really cemerlang and terbilang.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:08 pm

    Your money, my money, our money. We're paying a high price for bungling by Finance Minister. Elsewhere the Cabinet would have tendered resignation. Not in Malaya man! Let's see how the New Spin Times will spin this one. My idea again? Merdeka, merdeka, merdeka.

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  3. Anonymous1:45 pm

    Trust me, nothing will come out of this Pantai thing,Ecm libra and all the misdeeds...
    It just goes to show that 'crime pays' if you are among the top guns in the country. Now they are trying to avert our attention by playing the racial card.
    Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang???
    More like Temberang,Temberang and Temberang!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3:03 pm

    Leave this to our Iron Lady Rafidah Aziz to wrangle out this situation for Pak K-Lah.

    "....If Parkway Singapore don't like it, can go elsewhere:)......"



    Bumiputera equity ruling won't deter FDIs: Malaysia
    By Zaidi Isham Ismail
    xydee@nstp.com.my


    August 24 2006
    MALAYSIA's ruling which requires 30 per cent Bumiputera equity in some businesses has not affected the inflow of foreign investments into the country.

    International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz said foreigners who come to invest are bona fide companies that are confident on Malaysia's economic and political strengths.

    "We are not hiding anything and there are areas you can have 100 per cent equity, majority stake and 30 per cent Bumiputera stake ... those who have other feelings can go elsewhere," she said.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous6:40 pm

    Bro Rocky,

    You have predicted fairly accurately.

    Khazanah , through its fully-owned unit Pantai Irama Ventures Sdn., bought 25.3 million Pantai shares from the open market on Aug. 21, the filing said today. The stake is worth 63.5 million ringgit.

    Means at about RM2.50 per share.

    Why buy 4.9% which is not even controlling and at the high premium price?


    Please DPM don't ask us to change lifestyle again.


    http://www.biznewsdb.com/english/newspage/newspage.asp?ID=6082899&file1=6&bulan=08&kw=wwqq

    Malaysia's Khazanah Buys 4.9% of Pantai Holdings, Filing Shows

    Updated : 28-08-2006
    Media : Bloomberg
    Story By : Chan Tien Hin
    via www.biznewsdb.com
    Mail this story or page to friend(s).

    Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia's state investment arm, bought 4.9 percent of Pantai Holdings Bhd., the country's operator of private hospitals, a stock exchange filing showed.

    Khazanah, through its fully-owned unit Pantai Irama Ventures Sdn., bought 25.3 million Pantai shares from the open market on Aug. 21, the filing said today. The stake is worth 63.5 million ringgit ($17.3 million) based on its last traded price of 2.51 ringgit on Aug. 25. The stock was halted today.

    About 4.3 percent of Pantai shares change hands in off- market trades valued at 50.8 million ringgit on Aug. 21.


    www.biznewsdb.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous7:27 pm

    Saudara Rocky,

    Berikut reaksi awal saya kepada perkembangan terbaru ini.

    Baguslah kalau Kerjaan, melalui Khazanah Nasional Berhad, berusaha menguasai kembali Fomema dan Pantai Medivest dengan melakukan MGO ke atas Pantai Holding Berhad.

    Namun Kerajaan wajib menjawab mengapa penjualan Disember lalu diluluskan oleh Kementerian Kewangan dan agensi-agensi penguatkuasaan industri sekuriti?

    Ia perlu juga menjelaskan sama ada harga pembelian berpatutan dan adakah wajar wang rakyat digunakan untuk menebus kesilapan pihak berkuasa?

    Bukankah ada menteri-menteri kanan berkata kepada media massa mereka tidak tahu menahu mengenai penjualan itu?

    Adakah wajar dan berasas jika Parkway yang dulu memiliki kira-kira 30 peratus saham Pantai Holdings kini memiliki 49 peratus di dalam Special Vehicle bernama Pantai Irama Ventures Sdn Bhd?

    Apakah implikasi urus niaga ini terhadap dasar pemilikan saham oleh pemodal asing?

    Buat masa ini, kalau tidak silap saya, sudah pun membuat keuntungan lumayan daripada pemilikan yang tak sampai 10 bulan.

    Terima kasih.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:02 pm

    Tiger Woods

    No, Parkway Holdings will not be totally out of the picture. What will happen eventually, is that Parkway will not have a direct interest in Pantai Holdings, but will have an indirect 49 per cent stake in the hospital company, through its stakeholding in Pantai Irama.

    Khazanah will buy 6.6 per cent of Pantai through Pantai Irama. Then it will buy the entire 26 per cent owned by Parkway. Pantai Irama will then make a general offer fo the remaining shares in Pantai Holdings. It means that after all the dust has settled, Pantai Irama will own 26 per cent + 6.6 per cent + whatever it may get from the general offer.

    But...Parkway in turn will be buying a 49 per cent stake in Pantai Irama, which ultimately owns that stake in Pantai Holdings. So, it is only a transfer of role for Parkway -- from being a direct major shareholder in public listed Pantai Holdings to becoming an indirect major shareholder in a private company which owns a big stake in Pantai Holdings.

    So sekarang, Parkway bukan own itu Pantai Holdings sorang sorang lah....dia kena kongsi sama Khazanah sebab Khazanah own 51 per cent of Pantai Irama.

    How this will benefit Malaysia, Itu kena tanya Azman Mokhtar. Dia cakap dari tahun dulu Khazanah sudah ada plan want to buy a hospital company. Apa pasal dia tak mau beli dari dulu, itu pun saya tak tau juga. Kena tanya sama dia lah.

    But if you ask me, I would simply say, sekarang sudah TERPAKSA beli sebab orangramai sudah marah. If Khazanah mau totally get Parkway out of the picture, that would not look good for Malaysia's policy towards foreign investment. So terpaksa kasi juga lah dia remain dalam Pantai Irama.

    Whatever, Khazanah will have to spend some money first on the 6.6 per cent stake, and then on the 26 per cent stake and then to buy whatever shares and warrants in the general offer.

    Parkway in turn will have to spend in buying that 49 per cent stake in Pantai Irama. But since it will be selling the 6.6 per cent and 26 per cent to Pantai Irama, it will most probably have to pay nothing more than what it has already paid in buying the shares in Pantai Holdings before.

    So Khazanah kena lah nampaknya. And yes, Parkway will still have a say in Pantai Holdings, but this time through Pantai Irama.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous10:47 pm

    DJ UPDATE:Khazanah-Parkway JV Keeps Pantai In Malaysia Grip
    28/08/2006 20:24

    By Hasan Jafri
    Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

    KUALA LUMPUR (Dow Jones)--Singapore's Parkway Holdings Ltd. (P27.SG) will sell its direct stake in Pantai Holdings Bhd. (8036.KU) to a Malaysian state-owned investment company for MYR394.9 million (US$107 million), after Malaysian lawmakers demanded that the listed healthcare company remain in local hands.

    Parkway will sell its controlling 30.68% stake in Pantai to Khazanah Nasional Bhd. for MYR2.65 per share, a 5.7% premium to Pantai's last traded price, the companies said Monday.

    As part of the deal, Parkway will take a 49% stake in a joint venture company with Khazanah that will own all Pantai shares. Khazanah also said Pantai Irama Ventures Sdn. Bhd., the joint venture company, has bought 6.6% in Pantai and is making a general offer to buy its remaining shares.

    The deal allows Khazanah to increase its investments in healthcare after it last year bought a stake in Apollo Hospitals, India's largest private healthcare provider. Parkway will continue to manage the Pantai hospitals.

    "Khazanah has identified the healthcare sector as a strategic sector for us to invest in regionally," Khazanah Managing Director Azman Mokhtar said in a statement.

    The compromise underscores how a commercial transaction in Malaysia can quickly become a political firecracker. It also comes at a time when Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, keen to mend fences with Singapore, is under fire from his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad for being too soft on Malaysia's southern neighbor.

    "Parkway is swapping a direct stake for an indirect stake in Pantai," said a foreign fund manager who asked not to be named. "They will still get to manage Pantai, but it doesn't say much about investor confidence in Malaysia."

    Parkway last November became the controlling shareholder in Pantai when it bought the stake from a group of local businessmen for MYR311.6 million. The deal gave the private healthcare operator access to one of Malaysia's most profitable private healthcare providers with seven hospitals and several lucrative, long-term government concessions.

    But members of the ruling United Malays National Organization earlier this year said the deal - although it had been approved by regulatory authorities - violated Malaysia's race quota requirements, which stipulate that a company must be 30% owned by majority ethnic Malays.

    Furthermore, Pantai has a lucrative 15-year government concession to manage and supervise mandatory medical checkups for foreign workers, to which the race quota law also applies, lawmakers argued.

    -By Hasan Jafri, Dow Jones Newswires; 603-2692-5254; hasan.jafri@dowjones.com

    (END) Dow Jones Newswires
    August 28, 2006 08:24 ET (12:24 GMT)

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  9. Anonymous11:21 pm

    After all that is said and done, the deal does not address the fact that significant profits from the government concessions(Fomema & Medivest) are still going to foreigners!
    If the mandatory general offer goes through, there is an understanding that up to 40% will be going to Parkway.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous11:22 pm

    After all that is said and done, the deal does not address the fact that significant profits from the government concessions(Fomema & Medivest) are still going to foreigners!
    If the mandatory general offer goes through, there is an understanding that up to 40% will be going to Parkway.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous11:32 pm

    Rocky,
    For those interested in the details of the transaction, you can look at Parkway's announcement to the Singapore Stock Exchange at:
    http://info.sgx.com/webcorannc.nsf/New+Announcement+Today+by+Company+Name?Openview&RestrictToCategory=PPARKWAY%20HLDGS%20LTD

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous1:03 am

    Jadi Mr Rocky, Datuk Kadir dan Mr Tigerwood saya mau tanya, kalau bikin congak cara orang kampung, ini jam saja, Parkway sudah dapat capital gain RM74 juta, betul ka?
    Parkway beli Pantai RM320 juta. 10 bulan kemudian jual sama gomen RM394 juta.
    Lagi tambah kuasa. Dulu 30 per sen Pantai, sekarang 49 per sen Pantai Irama.
    Waa, siapa punya Irama? Parkway punya la. Kira orang Malaysia mana ada irama, merana ada la.
    Gomen punya hal, kita kena bayar.
    Azman Moktar dia apa peduli. Bukan duit dia. KPI boleh kira punya. Member-member hor!

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  13. Anonymous9:58 am

    have been avoiding reading about KJ for so long...tak tahan. so i dunno if this dah basi. heard that KJ gonna put his fingers in PNB.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous12:14 pm

    Bru

    The whole deal is structured to take away direct control of Pantai from Parkway, and transfer it to a Khazanah-Parkway jv.

    So at the end of the deal Singapore's interest will be indirect, as one of the investors in a company - Pantai Irama - that eventually will control Pantai.
    It is no more than a Public Relations exercise that says Singaporeans are no longer running Pantai, and more important, it is Malaysians via Khazanah that are looking after the strategic Fomema and Pantai Medivest.

    As far as public relations exercise is concerned, it is perhaps the most expensive we have seen.

    Nevertheless, the questions raised by AKadirJasin remain, chielfy, how did the deal went through the first place?

    While we are not in the habit of asking for heads on the platter, especially in this case when none would be forthcoming, this episode clearly demonstrates the lack of understanding on the parts of regulators, such as the Foreign Investment Committee all to Treasury and up, on the issues of strategic national interests.

    We know that as early as earlier in the year there have been efforts to resolve this sticky issue of Singapore control over Fomema and Pantai Medivest, and Putrajaya has been in the loop, but I suppose Dr M and bloggers like AKJ and Bru have beat them to the punch, forcing them to backpedal all the way. The silver lining in all these, we have to be optimistic regardless, is that they realised they did wrong and tried to correct it. I must add that I am rather charitable in my opinions of others, and I hope I am right.

    As for the 4.9 per cent, I believe it is to skirt the 5 per cent disclosure ruling. At 5 per cent one is deemed to be a substantial shareholder, and to buy 5 per cent or more one needs to make a declaration of intention even before making the purchases lest one be found guilty of transgressing SC rules, and hence tipping the market and the rest of us of the deal in process.

    As you might have noticed over the years, these Khazanah boys and girls are rather good at restructuring things, but have poor business foresight and ideas.

    ps/ love the flag.

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  15. Anonymous6:18 pm

    Bro and fellow forumers,
    Did this brilliant Khazanah rescue/bailout of government's bungling solve all the concerns?
    No. The answer is no. Why?
    Because Parkway ends up having more shares -- 49% vs 31%. It continues to manage Pantai -- thus continues to have access to medical records of Malaysians and other patients.
    It has a stronger partner in Malaysia to exploit.
    But most of all, what has Khazanah Board got to say about this deal. This kind of deal must have been deliberated and approved by the board?
    It cannot be the decision of the management alone, not even with PM's backing.

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  16. Anonymous2:58 pm

    The Pantai Irama deal is absolutely brilliant.Kudos to the brains behind the sophiscated fully market driven deal--a shining symbol of what Malaysians can achieve by thinking out of the box with proper guidance of the multi-colored books and KPIs.
    With the deal Malaysia remains a beacon of transparency,best corporate governance practises and will enhance foreign investor appetite to increase their weighting of Malaysia as an investment destination.This stroke of genius will also ensure that our dreams of creating a global Islamic Financial centre will be realised.
    Highlights of the commendable elements in the deal structure:

    1>Parkway makes a small capital gain of 83m.
    2>Parkway continues to manage Pantai
    3>Khazanah have access to the strengths of Parkway "medical" expertise which can be leveraged to a global platform.After all KPJ runs hospitals whereas Parkway makes profits on deals without the hassle of doctors/patients and nurses.
    4>And the deal demonstrates that minorities are protected with all the FIC approvals,GOs etc etc.

    Why are we compaining?Remember the other brilliant deals that we have done...
    1>>MTD is paid by the govt fully to construct a Highway and then allowed to collect tolls.And becos they hv to collect tolls,they must be compensated by being given some more work on ECE2
    2>>Maju will be doing the same on the much needed hiway to KLIA.And,Maju has shown a very global outlook by awarding the total job to Leighton.However,Leighton being a responsible foreign company is subcontracting work to locals.And all this happening without regard to race and religion.Phew--true internationalism.
    3>>MMC-Gamuda also doing the same thing on Smart.
    4>>Sunway gets 200m contract to build part of the Silk..and can collect tolls too.

    All these deals should be documented properly to provide guidance to our children and as a blueprint for dictators in the less developed countries,

    apexa

    ReplyDelete