Ingress ... Apr12

Sources say the UK’s Balfour Beatty plc is in talks with Ingress Corp Bhd to buy over the latter’s equity in Balfour Beatty Rail Sdn Bhd (BBRail). BBRail, which is involved in rail electrification business, is 70 per cent owned by Balfour Beatty - an infrastructure giant, and 30 per cent by Ingress, an auto parts supplier and engineering services provider.

Global Rail Sdn Bhd, a private railway engineering firm controlled by Fan Boon Heng, is also in talks with Ingress to buy over its stake in BBRail. Fan is the former managing director of BBRail. His company, Global Rail, has strong ties with Invensys Rail, Bombardier and Siemens. In March 2012, Global Rail won a RM120 million contract with IJM Corp Bhd to build for KTMB a six-car set electric multiple unit depot.

It is learnt that Ingress had so far declined both the offers as BBRail is anticipated to win a RM950 million systems contract for the Ampang light rail transit (LRT) line extension project.

It was reported that Malaysia is expected to award the job for systems work for the Ampang LRT line extension to a consortium led by the UK’s Invensys plc, a global engineering group. BBRail and Ingress are part of the consortium.

The contract is likely to be awarded in the current quarter (2QFY2012) and will help boost bilateral trade ties between Kuala Lumpur and London. The two UK groups are fighting hard for the LRT systems contract with the help of their government.

It is understood that there is concern in the shareholding structure of the consortium as it lacks local involvement. If the contract is awarded to a consortium led by foreign companies, there must be proper transfer of technology and localisation programmes in the contract. Currently, there is also a fight for the 30 per cent stake held by Ingress and the matter must be resolved soon.

Ingress had won several contracts since September 2011 from Tenaga Nasional Bhd and Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd to the tune of RM245 million.

Eight companies had bid for the LRT job with prices ranging between RM950 million and RM1.45 billion. The Invensys-led consortium was the lowest bidder. The other bidders were Posco-Sojitz-Thales, Colas-CMC Engineering-Thales, George Kent-China Railway-Thales, Samsung-LG-Thales, SNC Lavalin-WW Engineering-Bombardier, Siemens-Scomi Engineering and Ansaldo-Emrail-Leighton.
It was reported in December 2011 that Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd favoured Posco-Sojitz as it submitted the second lowest bid at about RM1.1 billion and offered to use the communication-based train control signalling system supplied by Thales.