RM3.6B ‘ASTEROID’ TO HIT 1MDB THIS SEPTEMBER, MP CLAIMS

(Malay Mail Online) – State-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is expected to be hit by the biggest “asteroid” yet this September, when its RM3.6 billion loan is due for payment in full, PKR lawmaker Rafizi Ramli alleged today.

Citing industry whistleblowers, the Pandan MP claimed that 1MDB had taken up a one-year loan worth US$975 million (RM3.6 billion) from an international consortium of six banks last October, with the interest rate believed to have been set at 11 per cent.

“If it’s true that it is at 11 per cent, it means that 1MDB is at the stage of taking an overdraft. After this, they will probably start taking loans via credit card,” he said at a news conference here.

“Imagine at 11 per cent, the interest they would have to pay would be nearly RM400 million. So altogether, 1MDB will have to pay RM4 billion by September,” he added.

Rafizi claimed that the timing of the RM3.6 billion loan was highly questionable, as 1MDB was at the time already struggling to settle RM2 billion in debt owed to a consortium of local banks that included Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) and RHB Capital Bhd, which threatened to declare the state-owned fund in default last February.

The situation was later resolved when Malaysian billionaire Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan reportedly lent 1MDB the money to settle the outstanding debt.

Rafizi said the situation left 1MDB in a poor position to negotiate with the international consortium, believing that the RM3.6 billion loan would not have been approved without any collateral.

“Based on the information I gathered, the collateral is said to be the funds kept at BSI Singapore, which according to the Sarawak Report does not exist.

“When it comes time to pay up, and there is no collateral and obviously 1MDB has no money to pay, one way or another a government fund will have to step in and pay for it,” the PKR vice-president claimed.

In Sarawak Report’s latest expose, it was alleged that 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy had distributed falsified financial statements to various parties on the debt-laden investment firm’s assets held in Singapore’s BSI.

In January, the Finance Ministry said 1MDB had deposited the US$1.103 billion (RM3.91 billion) it redeemed from its offshore account in the Cayman Islands into a Singapore-based branch of Swiss bank BSI Bank, with the amount held in US dollars.

Explaining why the funds were not repatriated back to Malaysia, Arul Kanda told a Business Times interview in February that this was because the funds were to be used to service 1MDB’s US dollar debt interest payments.

Rafizi today said the onus now falls on Prime Minister and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to come clean on whether or not 1MDB had taken the RM3.6 billion loan and if so, what sort of collateral was put up to secure the loan.

“The best thing to do now is to cut the losses, close down 1MDB, open up its books and tell the public how much debt it has.

“I’d rather absorb the losses instead of allowing what is happening now… with all the cloak and dagger dealings, someone is making money and cause the bailout to end up higher than what we should pay,” he said.