By Zurairi AR
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 – Government investment arm Khazanah Nasional Berhad posted a profit before tax of RM2.06 billion in 2012, down from RM5.34 billion in 2011.
However, Khazanah’s managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar insisted that the dip in profit is insignificant next to the increase in its portfolio value.
“The more important number to analyse ... we look at the portfolio health, portfolio value which is marked to the market. What you see is what you get,” Azman said.
“Frankly, the income statement is important, but it’s less important. It can be any number that you want it to be.”
Khazanah achieved a record high in their Net Worth Adjusted (NWA) at RM86.9 billion, which was up 24.3 per cent from 2011.
Its Realisable Asset Value (RAV) also increased 12.4 per cent to RM121.6 billion.
“A large part of the RM5.34 billion in 2011 was actually from PLUS,” said Khazanah’s Executive Director of Investment Ganen Sarvananthan, referring to the privatisation exercise of the highway operator in that year with the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).
“We were sellers of PLUS in 2011, which contributed a large chunk. We do one of these large divestments, so you would expect the (profit and loss statement) to have a higher number.”
Sarvananthan compared Khazanah’s profit for 2012 to the one in 2010, where the company posted a RM2.08 billion profit. Its profits for the years 2008 and 2009 were RM128 million and RM791 million respectively.
The firm contributed the record value to a strong delivery of projects in Iskandar Malaysia, and initial public offerings (IPO) of healthcare company IHH Berhad and Astro Holdings Berhad majority owned by it.
Astro raised approximately RM4.6 billion from its re-listing in October 2012, while IHH raised around RM6.3 billion from its IPO earlier in July last year.
These IPOs contributed around RM9.1 billion to Khazanah’s NWA movement, with the rest contributed by its telecommunication division (RM7.2 billion), and power (RM2.4 billion).
Among major milestones achieved by Khazanah in 2012 was the acquisition of a US$5.7 billion (RM17.21 billion) highway privatisation concession in Turkey, together with two Turkish firms Koc and Gozde Girisim.
Under the concession, Khazanah infrastructure arm UEM Group will operate a further 1,976km of toll roads for 25 years, in addition to the 1,277km it already operates in Malaysia, Indonesia and India.
Khazanah also has succeeded in completing a number of projects in the Iskandar region in Johor on time, including theme parks Legoland Malaysia and Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park.
Other national projects launched and completed in 2012 include the development of education hub EduCity in Iskandar, and the Unifi high-speed broadband (HSBB) rollout by Telekom Malaysia Berhad.