POS ... Mar11

Khazanah Nasional Bhd's divestment of its 32.21% stake in POS Malaysia Bhd seems to be going on track.

Sources say that five companies have submitted their bids for the Pos controlling stake, and that the names include DRB-Hicom Bhd, Scomi Group Bhd and Nationwide Express Courier Services Bhd. Of the two other bidders, one is said to be backed by a government financial institution and the other is a small technology firm.

Nationwide Express Courier Services is controlled by late Tan Sri Basir Ismail’s family.

Another bidder is Tricubes Bhd, controlled by its CEO Khairun Zainal, his wife Zalina Mohd Zaman Khan and his brother Hisham Zainal. Tricubes other shareholders are Commerce Technology Venture Sdn Bhd with 15.63% equity interest; Mayban Venture Capital Co Sdn Bhd has 9.64% stake; Heitech Padu Bhd has 5.93% stake and Tune Group’s Datuk Kamarudin Meranun has 3.08%.

Another bidder is understood to be government linked trustee company Amanah Raya Bhd, which controls Amanah Raya Real Estate Investment Trust.

The sale of the Pos controlling stake, however, is expected to have drawn a larger number of bidders. Names of potential bidders that had been bandied about in the past included the Naza Group, Sapura Holdings, the Berjaya Group, Konsortium Logistik Bhd's CEO Loo Hooi Keat and AirAsia Bhd group's CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

Singapore Post Ltd disclosed that it was not bidding for Khazanah's stake in Pos.

SingPost says it has no plans to acquire more GD Express Carrier shares at the moment. Singapore Post Ltd (SingPost) is not bidding for Khazanah Nasional Bhd's 32.2 per cent stake in Pos Malaysia Bhd. SingPost is 26.01 per cent owned by Singapore's state-owned investment arm, Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd. SingPost operates in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.

All the bidders will be expected to present their plans for what they want to do with Pos by the end of the March 2011. This presentation will be made to an independent evaluation panel. All bidders have had to provide a standby letter of credit to the tune of RM15mil.

The new Postal Bill is expected to be tabled in Parliament soon. The legislation is likely to tackle crucial issues in Pos, including the Government's golden share and rights over some of the real estates owned by Pos.

The potential relaxation of the use of Pos's landbank under the purview of the Postal Bill appeared to be progressing well as the draft Bill would be tabled in Parliament some time March 2011

It has been suggested that successful candidates to buy Khazanah's stake in Pos should not eventually load the postal company with huge debts or influence it to pay unreasonably high dividends.

Ideally, the party looking to buy Khazanah's 32.21% stake, that has a market value of close to RM550mil, should be able to raise that amount of money on its own, without having to rely on Pos' balance sheet.

The new shareholder should in fact, be looking to invest Pos' cashflows into the latter's growth plans. In other words, the buyer has to have a clear long-term, value-creation approach to Pos.

Pos has a healthy balance sheet, being in a net cash position and owning a lot of real estates.

Insiders also say that the divestment of the Pos stake will be completed by April 12 2011, the date of Invest Malaysia 2011.