KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd, the majority shareholder of PLUS Malaysia Bhd, has affirmed that it has no intention of selling its strategic asset to any party.
Its managing director Datuk Shahril Riza Ridzuan said that the group has so far rejected all takeover offers from local and foreign private entities for the country’s largest highway operator.
“There have been many offers from different parties… but our reply to all of them has been very simple – we are not interested in selling,” he said in an interview with TV3, aired on Saturday night.
Shahril Riza added that all the offers have been at lower prices than PLUS’ real value.
“If you want to buy (an asset) from the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) or Khazanah, you should offer a fair market price,” he said, adding that the interested parties had proposed using the difference between their offer and PLUS’ real value as toll discounts to the people.
“If you want to give discounts, it should be from your profits, not from us,” said Shahril Riza.
Khazanah owns 51 per cent of PLUS, while the EPF own 49 per cent, following a takeover exercise in 2011, in a transaction valued at RM32 billion.
He added that as an investment arm of the government, Khazanah must ensure that strategic assets such as PLUS are not sold to parties whose only interest is in making profits, without considering the needs of the people.
“If PLUS is making profits, it goes back to the government through Khazanah, or to Malaysians via the EPF,” he added. – Bernama