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Asia Media Group Bhd, the country’s largest transit-television network operator, plans to launch a terrestrial digital TV station by as early as the first quarter of next year, said its controlling stakeholder Datuk Ricky Wong Shee Kai.

“We have started testing works in Puchong and Shah Alam early this month, and have allocated as much as RM50 million in capital expenditure next year to help us with the launch in the Klang Valley,” Wong told Business Times in an interview at his office.

Wong, who owns slightly more than 45 per cent of Asia Media, is also the chief executive officer of the company.

“A partial launch will be done in the first quarter, and by the second quarter, we should be in full swing,” said Wong.

He said the first step in the plan to launch the terrestrial digital TV station is to launch the “out-of-home service”.

“Out-of-home service means that people who use public transport such as the Rapid buses and the city’s rail service will be able to watch live TV,” said Wong.

Currently, Asia Media operates transit TV services for the city buses, but most of the feed are pre-recorded, with the content coming from third parties.

“We will be recruiting as many as 100 people – (newscasters, talk show hosts, technical support people) and plan to rent a studio in Damansara for the live TV version,” said Wong, adding that by going live, Asia Media is hoping to rake in more advertisement dollars.

Asia Media is expecting to bring in as much as RM50 million next year from advertisements alone.

Wong said most of the shows will be in English and Bahasa Malaysia, with content coming directly from Asia Media. “We will be focusing on news-based items as well as talk shows,” said Wong, adding that the company also has a licence to operate a radio network.

“The radio network will focus mainly on the Chinese market,” said Wong.

He added that while the live show concept is new to Southeast Asia, it has been successfully operated in countries such as Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

“We can also operate a subscription-based as well as free-to-air terrestrial digital TV, but we have to be realistic,” said Wong.

According to Wong, apart from the cost, finding the right content is the major drawback, pulling the company away from this path.

“We are committed to spend RM500 million over a 10-year period to bring the out-of-home terrestrial digital TV station to areas outside the Klang Valley such as Ipoh, Penang and Johor … so it will be taxing for us to fight on two fronts,” said Wong.

He saidAsia Media does not want to expand for the sake of expanding. “We only want to do so if it keeps us profitable,” said Wong, adding that he is confident Asia Media will post a pre-tax profit of about RM15 million this year.

Last Friday, Asia Media said for the nine months ended August 30 2011, the firm’s pre-tax profit stood at RM11.74 million versus RM8.13 million in the same period a year ago.

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Public Bank Bhd raked in slightly better-than-expected earnings on strong revenue growth, cost efficiency and good asset quality, which contributed to the improvement in credit charges during the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2011.

The banking group saw its third-quarter net profit for financial year 2011 grow 14.8% to RM898.79mil, compared with RM782.7mil for the corresponding period last year, while revenue grew 13.7% to RM3.27bil from RM2.88bil previously. Earnings per share rose to 25.7 sen for the quarter from 22.3 sen previously.

“The outlook of the Malaysian banking sector, in which the group largely operates in, continues to be stable and supportive of growth. We continue to see the group’s business performance to be in line with expectations and on track in meeting the key business targets for 2011,” said Public Bank chairman Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow in a statement yesterday.

While Public Bank managed to post a strong performance on an annual basis, some analysts noted that there were already indications that growth momentum for the bank had moderated since the third quarter of this year.

“Looking at the present trend, it is pretty clear that growth will continue to slow down even more into the fourth quarter,” MIDF Research banking analyst Calvin Ong said.

Another analyst from a local research house, however, said Public Bank could benefit from a potential pickup in lending activities in a still-strong local economic environment in the fourth quarter and would likely gain from the spillover effects from the Economic Transformation Programme initiatives.

For the nine-month period, Public Bank’s net profit grew 20.9% to RM2.61bil on revenue of RM9.43bil, compared with a net profit of RM2.2bil on revenue of RM8.06bil for the same period last year.

The group managed to sustain its market leadership in domestic lending for residential mortgages, commercial property financing and passenger vehicles financing with market shares of 18.0%, 33.7% and 25.7%, respectively. Its lending remained focused on the retail sector, with loans to mid-market commercial enterprises as well as loans for the financing of residential properties and purchase of passenger vehicles accounting for 85% of the total loan portfolio of the group as at the end of September 2011.

The group’s residential properties and passenger vehicles financing grew at annualised rates of 17.7% and 9.7% respectively for the first nine months, which outperformed the growth rates of the industry of 12.5% and 6.7% respectively.

The Public Bank group’s funding position remained robust supported by its strong retail franchise and large domestic depositor base of over 4.5 million customers.

Gross loans book stood at RM172.7bil, recording a growth of 13.8% on an annualised basis. Domestic loans growth remained strong with an annualised growth rate of 14.1%. Over the same period, total customer deposits grew by an annualised rate of 12.7% to RM193.7bil, while domestic customer deposits grew at a stronger 13.8%.

Domestic customer deposits grew at an annualised rate of 13.8%, compared with the domestic banking industry’s annualised growth of 9.8%. This was mainly attributed to steady inflows of fixed and savings deposits, which grew at annualised rates of 12.2% and 11.9% respectively, outperforming the Malaysian banking industry’s annualised 9.5% growth in fixed deposits and 9.1% growth in savings deposits.

For the nine months, Public Bank’s overseas operations contributed 6.5% of the group’s overall pre-tax profit, compared with 7.6% contribution in 2010 due to the negative effect of foreign exchange differences.

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OCBC Capital (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd has made an offer to acquire all of PacificMas Bhd’s stakes in its five subsidiaries for RM450mil.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, PacificMas said OCBC Capital Malaysia planned to acquire 100% of Pac Lease Bhd, PB Pacific Sdn Bhd, PacificMas Fidelity Sdn Bhd and PacificMas Capital Sdn Bhd as well as an 85% stake in Pacific Mutual Fund Bhd.

In the offer letter, OCBC Capital Malaysia said the aggregate purchase consideration for the proposed acquisition should be RM450mil, of which RM164.23mil in cash would be paid on completion date and RM285.76mil as an amount due and owing by OCBC Capital Malaysia to PacificMas payable not later than 12 months from the date of the acquisition agreement.

It said upon the completion of the corporate exercise, PacificMas’ assets would comprise mainly cash, available-for-sale/trading securities and the deferred amount.

PacificMas will immediately take steps to liquidate/sell as far as possible all of its remaining residual assets and settle all the outstanding debts or liabilities, including settling expenses relating to the proposed acquisitions and proposed distributions.

“Thereafter, PacificMas will promptly distribute its remaining cash via the declaration of special dividend(s) and/or the implementation of a capital repayment exercise in accordance with Section 64 of the Companies Act, 1965, to all the entitled shareholders of PacificMas,” it said.

“The objective of the liquidation and sale of assets is to realise the value of all remaining assets and PacificMas will use its best endeavours to distribute expeditiously the remaining cash and realizable value to all the entitled shareholders,” it said.

CSB would authorise PacificMas to apply the cash entitlement of OCBC Capital Malaysia under the proposed distributions to set off against the deferred amount and distribute the balance, if any, to OCBC Capital Malaysia in cash.

This offer shall remain open for acceptance up to 5.30pm on Nov 4, 2011.

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