Khazanah wants to sell its 32.21 per cent stake in Pos Malaysia – soon after postal tariffs were substantially hiked. What’s the rationale?
Why raise tariffs so much from 1 July and then sell its stake? Shouldn’t the profit from the higher tariffs remain in government hands instead of transferring the immediate benefit to private hands or other entities?
It’s not as if the postal company is losing money. Not by a long shot. Despite all its inefficiencies, Pos Malaysia posted a profit before tax of RRM109 million for the year ended 31 December 2009 – up from a loss before tax of RM0.5 million the previous year.
Its profit from operating activities in 2009 was RM82 million (on the back of turnover of RM902 million), only slightly down from its operating profit of RM86 million the previous year (turnover RM922 million). Its current assets exceeded current liabilities while its ‘cash and cash equivalents’ stood at RM318 million.
Khazanah, which comes under the Finance Ministry, is inviting bids for its 32.21 per cent stake, the Edge weekly has reported. (The company handling the pre-qualification exercise for the bids is CIMB Investment Bank.) Apparently the bidders have to be 51 per cent owned and controlled by Malaysians.This could see the entry of foreign players as partners with a local company. The condition is that Pos Malaysia has to strike a balance between making profits and fulfilling its social obligations.
But why sell in the first place, when Pos Malaysia is set to make even higher profits after the huge tariff hike?
Maybe it is thought that with the growing use of email and online bill payments, the postal business is a fading proposition. But Pos Malaysia is sitting on a gold mine: it has 697 branches – think of the property value and the reach, which is more extensive than any bank. That is a huge advantage for any firm. Much will depend on how this is valued.
All it needs is a new model that would improve standard mail and courier services and introduce new services that could take advantage of its reach. Given the trend towards online shopping, Pos Malaysia could offer online mail order deliveries and charge businesses a fee for delivering. Its network would also come in handy in various government exercises such as voter registration and payment of petrol rebates to the public. In fact, Pos Malaysia could be turned into a one-stop public service centre that could bring the government delivery system within reach of the people.
Why sell such a potentially useful, even lucrative network? If foreign expertise is needed, why not hire experts to look into streamlining the postal services instead of selling the stake in Pos Malaysia?
Watch carefully how they value this stake in Pos Malaysia.
Snail mails vs emails
Obviously emails have won the war. I think it is better to divest its investment before too late as too many courier services already have been setup.
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NEP breeds corrupt, lazy and incompetent individuals whose lusts for instant wealth are insatiable. This is what we see after years of the NEP, incompetent people running GLCs, abusing all priviledges accorded, a case which shamed all Malaysians was at the Teoh Beng Hock’s inquest where a practising lawyer/DPP of 24 years spoke such poor English in a high profile case. Just how would people think of Malaysians, then and now?
NEP + Monopoly = Destruction of competition at the expense of the Rakyat’s interest!
Until and unless there are more accountabilities and transparencies, such abuses will continue. The continuation of the NEP will breed even weaker individuals who sit on high offices because of their political affiliations and not based on their ability. To discontinue or modify the NEP, Najib,UMNO/BN are not able to do so, and the Rakyat must play its part to make Malaysians global players in this fast changing economic world. We need to vote this corrupt and regressing Government out for the good of us all.
PAS for All, All for Pakatan. Salam Reformasi!
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Hi everyone,
This (appears to be) just one of the modus operandi of the UMNO-run govt and its agencies, fatten the cows (Pos Malaysia in this case) and then privatise them to enrich their cronies!!
All this are done at the expense of the people, to (allegedly) siphon ‘riches’ into the pockets of (well-connected)!!
So, let’s march to a 2-party system in the next GE, to do BN a favour for once in the opposition bench, the rent-seekers in their midst would then willingly abandom them!!
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At 60 cents per standard size letter, I’ve shifted all my payments from cheques by post to on line banking.
I’ve also decided, starting from that postal hike, to stop all greeting cards through the post and move them to email attachments.
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Ai yah, privatise profits and socialise losses mah!
Anyway, if it’s still lucrative, maybe EPF should buy up the stakes. Afterall, they’re planning to invest billions into properties, which I’m afraid are (possibly) being pilfered by middlemen!! I’m for any profitable business which serves the rakyat, to be owned by the Rakyat through EPF.
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the same pattern of selling profit making enterprise is common knowledge in malaysia. another aspect of pos malaysia is the poor management of its assets. from stamp collectors pos malaysia is making money without any effort. sell the stamps to collectors and no work done. is like printing money and easy money for pos malaysia making huge profits out of printing paper! lately there is a sort of monopoly where new stamps are issued. the circulation is so limited and the value of the stamps do not commensurate with the postal rates! all in the name of sucking the stamp collectors pockets. the philatelic bureau in kl mainly caters to dealers and collectors in kl and could not be bothered with collectors from other states. so collectors have no choice but to look up for the dealers who are making easy money from poor collectors. the dealers are able to do that because they have ‘direct access’ with the postal. what entails in between is anybody’s guess.
pos malaysia also holds a lot of ‘philatelic waste’ which are sort after by collectors. they also have a good collection of art work when they commisioned out for the artist to draw and very often the struggling artist have to produce a few pieces. imagine over the years the number accumulated and what about the artist who became famous? these are also assets which i am not sure whether they have archived them or i don’t know whether they are still there. if the management is weak these will all be vaporised!
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O and Tan Tanjung Bungah,
You sound good in critisizing. Why not do some more efforts and make your way to become YB. Then you can voice out your idea and discuss it with the right peoples. If you only talk to keyboard and computers, you will not going anywhere.
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Hi. You stupid. The salary of state assemblyman or MP can hardly make any of them survive. You think that everyone one can afford to be a MP or SA. Bodoh!
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