KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Corp Bhd wants to transform itself from a "physical company" into a "full digital player" as it leverages its strengths and builds for the future.
It is learnt that this vision means putting digitalisation at the forefront of YTL group's different nature of businesses across the domestic and international utilities, construction, cement, hospitality and property industries.
The group was looking into two areas namely electrification and data mining but there was no timeline given, said sources who attended a closed-door session by the group recently.
"The group wants to be a major data player, mining data across their vast operations. It has hotels, shopping malls and telecommunications, among others.
"It believes that there is more than US$3.1 billion in potential value by turning raw data from its vast businesses into useful information to increase revenues, cut costs, improve customer relationships, reduce risks and more," the source added.
For electrification, the sources said YTL planned to create recharge hubs in the Klang Valley initially for electric vehicles, thus becoming one of the earliest movers in the potentially lucrative charging business.
"Right now, you mostly see charging points in selected shopping malls. The group wants to create something bigger, like a petrol station concept but with rechargeable cars. It wants to move in fast so that it can be a pioneer and market leader," the source said.
Building on this, YTL will then want to include rechargeable points in the landed properties that it is going to develop going forward.
"It plans to install rechargeable walls/ports right into the homes," the source added.
As YTL sells "power" to EV owners, payment can be settled digitally. And the group already has a division, YTL Digital Capital Sdn Bhd, that delves into digital banking services.
YTL Digital is one half of a two-member consortium with Singapore-based SEA Ltd that has been awarded one of Malaysia's maiden five digital banking licences.
The sources said the potential new ventures should inject fresh impetus into YTL, which posted a lower net profit in its latest interim results and whose share price remained flat so far this year.
YTL last week announced that its net profit had fallen 65.21 per cent to RM36.6 million in the first quarter ended Sept 30, 2022 from RM105.22 million a year ago due to higher construction and finance costs incurred.
Group revenue, however, jumped 28 per cent to RM6.49 billion from RM5.06 billion.
YTL executive chairman Tan Sri Francis Yeoh Sock Ping, in its filing to Bursa Malaysia, said the group had made a good start to the financial year 2023 as better performances had been recorded across most of its business segments.
YTL's share price closed unchanged at 58 sen last Friday, giving it a market capitalisation of RM6.39 billion.
The stock remained flat year-to-date and over the last one year, but lost nearly half of its value in the past five years.