Proton Lelong- Sold!

 by Dr R@28

• 
  Yesterday Khazanah announced that they have sold their strategic stake in Proton (42.7%) to DRB-Hicom for RM1.3 billion. I am not convinced that the sale would benefit the company or the automotive industry. What is clear though is that now that Proton is in the hands of private individual, then we can no longer call it a national car. Since there is no longer any national car around, there is no reason for the government to maintain the preferential tax treatment that is given to proton. It is time to liberalize and allow a fairer tax structure for the benefit of all Malaysian.

• Is it the best deal for Proton and its shareholders? The world automotive industry has change. Technology is moving fast and my own assessment is that Proton is trailing far behind. The days of car manufacturer produces every single part is over. Giant manufacturers today are nothing more than Giant assemblers. Their products are designed by assembling all available components that is available in the world market. From a pure business angle, I am not convinced that Khazanah got the best deal. I am far from convinced that DRBH entry would inject a strategic value into proton considering they are also not on the world stage. DRBH survival has always been dependent on government procurement especially from the Military. I believe there are hidden hands that interfere in this decision making process. I suspect DRBH would be a mere middleman where it would now seek international partners to take a stake in Proton and make some money from the transaction.

• I was hoping to see Proton cars with BMW or WW technology in it and I suspect it is not happening soon. In any case, the government has no more reason to give protection to proton. It must liberalize the tax structures for cars where all locally assembled cars must only use one tax structure. Since Khazanah and Proton is not a real winner in this deal, maybe the government would consider making the rakyat as the real beneficiary where we could buy better-branded cars at a cheaper price. Maybe it is time the people demand for it. Who knows BN may consider it, as part of pre-election goodies the people would enjoy. After all the government has been giving plenty of goodies lately. Lets push for it.Who knows we might be lucky.