PNB may list property assets to boost returns

“We will have to look at what’s the best for us,” PNB CEO Tan Sri Hamad Kama Piah Che Othman told reporters here on Dec 14. “It’s a matter of opportunity,” he said.

“It depends on the market conditions and the value that we create.”

Companies have been taking advantage of a resurgent stock market to list, with Maxis Bhd raising a record US$3.3 billion (RM11.25 billion) last month.

PNB, which manages more than RM100 billion of assets, has completed the merger of its three property companies, Island & Peninsular Bhd, Pelangi Bhd and Petaling Garden Bhd, after taking them private, Hamad Kama Piah said.

The asset manager bought Island & Peninsular for RM670.5 million and Petaling Garden for RM477 million in 2007. It took over Pelangi Bhd two years earlier.

On the government’s push to trim stakes in state-linked companies to bolster liquidity, Hamad Kama Piah said: “You can sell, but returns must be good for the unit holders.”

PNB “hopes” the Malaysian stock market would do better next year as the government pushes through its efforts to revive the economy, he said.

The asset manager is studying ways to develop land surrounding two stadiums here, he said without elaborating. — Bloomberg LP

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, Dec 15, 2009.