<\/p>\n
Malaysian tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is looking at bringing in an investor into MMC Port Holdings – a deal that could value the country’s biggest port operator at more than 12 billion ringgit ($2.7 billion), two people with knowledge of the matter said.<\/p>\n
His conglomerate MMC Corp may sell a stake of up to 30% in MMC Ports, said one of the people, adding that financial investors and companies have approached MMC Corp about their interest in the ports business.<\/p>\n
A sale could be a precursor to a potential MMC Ports listing on the Malaysian stock exchange in a few years, said the sources.<\/p>\n
Deliberations were ongoing and no decisions have been made, they added, declining to be identified as the discussions were private.<\/p>\n
MMC Corp and MMC Ports did not respond to requests seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Amid a high inflationary environment, global investor interest in infrastructure assets has grown with sovereign, pension and private equity funds eager for solid long-term returns.<\/p>\n
Global container volumes have also soared due to supply chain disruptions and congested ports, spurring deal discussions in the sector.<\/p>\n
Port operator PSA International, fully owned by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, is evaluating a sale of its multi-billion dollar 20% stake in CK Hutchison Holdings’ ports business, Reuters reported in December.<\/p>\n
MMC Ports has seven ports in Malaysia – Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Johor Port, Northport, Penang Port, Tanjung Bruas Port, SPT Services and Andaman Port, according to its website.<\/p>\n
All are located along the Straits of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.<\/p>\n
MMC Corp also owns stakes in Malaysia’s largest independent power producer Malakoff Corp and the country’s only supplier of reticulated natural gas in Peninsular Malaysia, Gas Malaysia.<\/p>\n
Syed Mokhtar also owns a majority stake in another Malaysian conglomerate called DRB-Hicom, which in turn has holdings in national postal service firm Pos Malaysia and unlisted car maker Proton Holdings.<\/p>\n
($1 = 4.4350 ringgit)<\/em><\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malaysian tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is looking at bringing in an investor into MMC Port Holdings – a deal that could value the country’s biggest port operator at more than 12 billion ringgit ($2.7 billion), two people with knowledge of the matter said. His conglomerate MMC Corp may sell a stake of up to 30% …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/33788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}