Khazanah Nasional sells 45.03% of Time Engineering to Censof

by **Cals** Fri 13 Sep 2013, 01:06

Published: Thursday September 12, 2013 MYT 5:27:00 PM
Updated: Thursday September 12, 2013 MYT 5:47:19 PM
Khazanah Nasional sells 45.03% of Time Engineering to Censof

KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd has divested its entire equity interest of 45.03% in TIME Engineering Berhad to Censof Holdings Bhd at 20 sen per share for RM69.8mil cash.
Khazanah said the decision was made following an extensive tender process to select a suitable new shareholder.
The divestment price was determined based on the fundamentals of TIME, reflecting the remaining concession period with the Royal Malaysian Customs Department up to September 2014 by TIME’s majority-owned subsidiary, Dagang Net Technologies Sdn Bhd (DNT), and two other subsidiaries which are operating at a loss.
It said the divestment involved a three-stage tender process through which a group of bidders were selected at each stage based on a set of evaluation criteria – price and business plan for TIME, financial track record, and experience in information and communication technology.
“Censof was selected out of the 10 interested parties based on the merit of its overall bid and a defined strategy in line with our divestment objectives for TEB, following a transparent and stringent tender process presided by an independent evaluation panel,” said Khazanah’s MD Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar.
“We believe that Censof brings with it the strong entrepreneurship and business acumen, as well as management capabilities, leadership, and the technical and financial capabilities that can take TIME to the next level of performance,” he added.
TIME’s main business is providing solutions for e-commerce, cyber security and integrated intelligent infrastructure. It ended the first half of its 2013 financial year with an earnings (before interests, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of RM14mil and pre-tax profit of RM7.08mil, while net assets stood at 11 sen per share.
The divestment is pursuant to the initiative announced by Prime Minister Datuk SriMohd Najib Tun Razak on Feb 9, 2012, that Khazanah and Permodalan Nasional Bhdwould divest a total of 10 non-core assets to Bumiputera companies.
TIME is one of the five non-core assets identified by Khazanah for divestment under the TERAJU initiative and is the fourth company to be divested under this initiative. The divestment of STLR Sdn Bhd was successfully completed earlier this year.
Between 2004 and 2012, Khazanah divested a total of 55 assets and companies valued at RM35.7bil, with some of the assets being Proton Holdings Berhad, Pos Malaysia Berhad and Time dotcom Berhad. The divestment of TIME is the 57th divestment made by Khazanah since the start of its transformation programme in May 2004. In total, the divestments have generated gains of RM16.3bil.