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The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has made a conditional takeover offer to buy all the shares in Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd (MRCB) for RM1.50 each after triggering the takeover threshold.

The exercise could see EPF pay up to RM1.36bil for MRCB if there was full acceptance from other shareholders.

The conditional offer was prompted after EPF was allocated additional shares under MRCB’s RM566mil rights issue that led to the fund’s shareholding in the developer exceed 33% to 33.78%

The increase in EPF’s shareholding past the 33% threshold obliged the fund to conduct the takeover under the Malaysian Code on Take-Overs and Mergers, 1998.

In a statement to Bursa Malaysia yesterday, MRCB said EPF, however, intended to maintain the listed status of MRCB and would not privatise the company.

OSK Research head Chris Eng said the offer of RM1.50 a share was slightly below the brokerage’s fair value and that the offer itself was not very attractive.

“There is a lot more potential in the company which we have not factored into the fair value of the stock,’’ he said.

MRCB is talked about being a bidder for major tracks of land in the Klang Valley and the money it raised from the rights issue would go towards buying land for future development projects.

Analysts said its track record in developing KL Sentral would act as a good platform for MRCB in making its case in any bids for such land.

Sources said EPF was unable to apply for a waiver from making the takeover from the Securities Commission as it did not fulfil an important criterion, which is the condition of not trading a company’s shares in the past six months.

Under the Code, EPF would have to offer to shareholders of MRCB the highest price it paid to buy an MRCB share over the past six months, sources said.

The offer for MRCB represents a small 2% premium over the last traded price of the stock of RM1.47. Sources said EPF wanted to make a fair offer but did not intend to give large premiums of around 20% seen in other privatisation deals as it was not the fund’s intention to delist the company from the stock exchange.

“It does not want to take the company private and would like to see future capital appreciation of MRCB,’’ the source said.

Sources also shot down suggestions that the takeover offer was a new strategic direction for the fund where it would prefer direct control of companies.

Although EPF controls RHB Capital Bhd and Malaysian Building Society Bhd, it does not want to take MRCB down the same path.

Sources said even if EPF, which also owns large stakes in other developers such as IJM Corp Bhd, dramatically increases its stake in MRCB, it would not make MRCB its vehicle for property ventures.

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Allianz Malaysia Bhd (AMB) group continued to grow profitably in its 2009 results, the company said in a statement yesterday.

The group clocked a gross written premium (GWP) of RM2.07bil in 2009 as compared with RM1.77bil in 2008, translating to a significant growth of 17%.

The general insurance business of AMB, Allianz General Insurance Co (Malaysia) Bhd, recorded RM1.2bil in GWP last year, a 12% growth from 2008. “The group also posted a commendable underwriting profit of RM102.4mil, a 29% jump from 2008, through its underwriting and strong risk management,” the company stated.

Allianz General also secured 10.35% of market share as at Sept 30, 2009, making it the top general insurance provider in Malaysia. Other than the general insurance business, Allianz Life Insurance Malaysia Bhd also recorded profitable growth in 2009 with RM868.7mil generated in GWP, for a 26% increase over the RM692mil in the previous year.

“Moving forward, in 2010, we will continue to focus on profitable growth while further enhancing various productive distribution channels, especially our core agency force in the life insurance business,” chief executive officer of Allianz Malaysia Bhd Alexander Ankel said.

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Celcom Axiata Bhd registered a profit after tax and minority interests (Patami) of RM412mil in the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, a 22.6% increase compared with RM336mil in the previous corresponding period.

This marks its 15th consecutive quarter of positive growth.

It posted a revenue of RM1.7bil in the quarter compared with RM1.47bil previously.

“The growth was mainly driven by our segmentation marketing, restructured sales and distribution systems, improvement in network and customer services and the improving performance in the group,” chief executive officer Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly told a press conference after the company’s result briefing yesterday.

He said Celcom planned to sustain its current momentum and continue exceeding its industry average growth in all key areas of its business, including retail, corporate and young segment.

“The year 2010 marks the start of our transformation period towards being a company with high performing culture. In the coming quarters, we will be focusing on various areas and benchmark ourselves against the industry locally and internationally.”

He said the enterprise segment held huge potential amidst the economic slowdown and Celcom intended to drive the business deeper.

Its holdings company, Axiata Bhd, will announce the key performance indicator for 2010 in April.

“We plan to spend RM900mil to RM1bil capital expenditure (capex) this year, compared with RM780mil last year, from internally-generated funds,” he said.

He said a large portion of expenditure last year was used to build up the infrastructure but the company would spend 40% of its capex this year on network infrastructure, especially in 3G, and the rest in areas like business intelligence and new billing systems.

For the financial year ended Dec 31 (FY09), the company posted a Patami of RM1.5bil, a 19% increase from FY08. Its revenue increased 12.8% to RM6.3bil.

Its average revenue per user for 2009 fell from RM106 to RM103 for the postpaid segment compared with 2008 while the prepaid segment dropped 8.6% to RM43.

On the possibility of Celcom offering iPhone, Shazalli said: “We do have a choice and we will evaluate it carefully as we need to make sure all the support levels are in place if we want to bring in iPhone.”

The company had actually discussed with Apple two years ago but nothing had been concluded, he said, adding that it would currently focus on promoting its Blackberry products.

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