Published: 2009/02/27
KHAZANAH Nasional Bhd, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, hired three banks to help it borrow US$500 million that it will used to refinance maturing debt, according to three people familiar with the plan.
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, DBS Group Holdings Ltd and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp will underwrite a three-year loan for Khazanah, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.Kuala Lumpur-based Khazanah will use the money to pay off a loan it got from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi last year, they said.
Khazanah spokesman Mohd Asuki Abas declined to comment on the company’s finances.Khazanah owns controlling stakes in Malaysia’s biggest companies, including banking group Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Bhd, utility Tenaga Nasional Bhd and Malaysian Airline System Bhd.
The value of its assets dropped 37 per cent to RM33.7 billion (US$9.1 billion) in the last seven months of 2008 as stock and bond prices slumped worldwide, Managing Director Azman Mokhtar said last month.
Syndicated loan sales in the Asia-Pacific region outside Japan fell 84 per cent to US$6.6 billion this year as lenders hoard cash to recover from more than US$1.1 trillion of writedowns and losses, data compiled by Bloomberg show. - Bloomberg