Decision on Proton’s future soon

Khazanah Nasional Bhd will decide by this month on selling its 43 per cent stake in national car maker Proton Holdings Bhd, people who were invited to participate in the bidding process said.


Khazanah had stressed that one of the core conditions for the bid to be accepted was that the party must buy the entire block, they added.

“There is no such thing as buying a partial block in order not to trigger a general offer,” said one of at least two people who are involved directly in the bidding process.

Buying the whole block from the state investment
firm will trigger a general offer. The bids placed were between RM6 and RM7 a share.

Business Times understands that of the initial

four bidders, only two have been shortlisted for the sale.

They are key shareholders of the Naza Group and Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary’s DRB-HICOM Bhd.

Naza and Syed Mokhtar are at loggerheads again, almost seven years after they squared off, ironically for a controlling stake in DRB-HICOM.

“It looks like Syed Mokhtar will emerge the winner again as the DRB-HICOM bid is very competitive and also because of the Volkswagen AG element,” said a source.

Proton, which owns sports car maker Lotus Group International Ltd, has been on the lookout for a strategic partner to help compete with bigger global automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen and Honda Motor Co.

DRB-HICOM has a collaboration agreement with Volkswagen to locally assemble VW cars in Pekan, Pahang.

The VW cars assembled there are likely to be priced close to the top range Proton models, which currently sell at above the RM100,000 mark.

This could put pressure on the national car maker’s production capacity at its Tanjung Malim plant, which has an installed capacity of 150,000 units a year.