Road Builder buys 20pc of West Coast Expressway

by **hlk** Wed 14 Mar 2012, 08:24

KUALA LUMPUR: A wholly-owned unit of IJM Corp Bhd has bought a substantial 20 per cent stake in RM7.07 billion highway concession holder West Coast Expressway Sdn Bhd (WCE) for RM6.8 million.

In an announcement to Bursa Malaysia Bhd yesterday, IJM said its subsidiary, Road Builder (M) Holdings Bhd, had purchased a 20 per cent stake in WCE through Prominent Xtreme Sdn Bhd.

Prior to this, IJM’s exposure to WCE was through Kumpulan Europlus, of which it owns 22.72 per cent. Kumpulan Europlus owns an 80 per cent stake in WCE.

News reports had speculated that IJM would raise its stake in Kumpulan Europlus in a move seen to be crucial for the company to raise the funds it needs for the equity portion of the project.

This is said to be about RM1.5 billion.

However, yesterday’s move saw the con-struction conglomerate raising its eﬀective stake in WCE instead.

The purchase price was arrived at on a willing-buyer-willing-seller basis after taking into consideration WCE’s audited net assets as at January 31 2011 and its future prospects.

WCE, on January 26 2012, received approv-al from the Public Private Partnership Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department to undertake the proposed privatisation of the construction of the WCE based on build-operate-transfer with a concession period of 60 years.

The 316km expressway linking Banting in Selangor and Taiping in Perak is meant to be an alternative to the increasingly congested North-South Expressway.