Good morning,
1) Proton: Both Tan Chong Motors & UMW have denied that it was joining the race to bid for Khazanah's 42.7% stake in Proton Holdings. Tan Chong's announcement to Bursa was made in response to press reports that quoted a broking house on the matter. Yesterday Tan Chong announced to Bursa that it has neither received any formal invitation nor has any plan to bid for the stake in Proton. Meanwhile, UMW has reiterated that it will not be making a bid and that they are committed to their partner Toyota in enhancing it's business here in Malaysia and making Perodua self reliant pre & post National Automotive Policy (NAP); Expected.
2) BPuri: Bina Puri Holdings is close to securing the privatization concession for the Motorway 9 (M-9) highway in Pakistan, sources said. The M-9 links Hyderabad to Karachi. It is understood that BPuri has already received the LOI from the National Highway Authority of Pakistan but is still negotiating the finer points of the contract. According to the source, BPuri will have a 28-year concession to operate the highway, 3 years of which will entail BPuri upgrading the M-9 from 4 lanes to 6 lanes, at a cost of some RM600m. Pakistan is not unfamiliar to BPuri. In Sept last year, Co completed the construction of 174 villas in Lahore for RM194m. In 2010, it completed construction of the Nippon Paint Factory in Lahore for RM340m. If BPuri bags the Pakistan contract, it will be the second highway concession after the KL-Kuala Selangor Expressway (Latar) in which it has 50%. Watch this space.
3) MMC: Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) has been asked to assist MMC Corp to conduct due diligence on the national railway company starting this month, said it's president. The due diligence is important for MMC to decide if it wants to privatize KTMB. It was reported in Dec that MMC plans to pump in RM1b into KTMB & take over it's operations. Speculation has been rife that the govt is planning to put the plan on ice following protests by the Railwayman Union of Malaya (RUM). RUM argued that it won't be right for KTMB to hand over it's operations to a private party & worried that it would see many of it's 5,500 workers retrenched. The due diligence is likely to take 6 months to complete & estimates that it may take up to 18 months or more before the operations of KTMB can be handed over to MMC, given the complexity involved - Neutral.
4) Mkt: mixed trading with focus on situationals & lower liners.