Proposed UEM Sunrise-Eco World merger raising concerns, says report

The proposed merger, if it is realised, will result in one of Malaysia’s largest real estate companies by market value.

PETALING JAYA: A proposed merger between UEM Sunrise, the property arm of Khazanah Nasional, and Eco World Development Group Bhd is raising some concerns, according to The Sunday Times.

Bankers and government officials close to the situation told the Singapore daily that there is some opposition from the sovereign fund and several senior government officials to the proposed merger.

Leading the charge for the deal, the report said, is tycoon Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, who is closely linked to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Bankers and government officials said he is also closely associated with the main shareholders of Eco World.

“(The proposed transaction) hangs in a balance that for now is tilting in Eco World’s favour,” a senior government official close to the situation, who is also against the UEM-Eco World deal, told The Sunday Times.

The report said that Eco World founder Liew Kee Sin and his partners are insisting on management control in the merged entity should the deal go through.

It said the “keen interest on developments surrounding Eco World” is also due to Liew, who set up SP Setia in the early 1990s and turned the company into one of the most profitable publicly-listed property entities before being taken over by state-owned investment fund Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) in 2014.

Eco World was set up shortly after Liew and his partners took over Focal Aims, a small Johor-based listed company, before expanding aggressively.

“But the group’s high leveraged expansion strategy has left it saddled with debts of more than RM3.7 billion against a backdrop of declining sales both in Malaysia and its international operations,” the report said.

On Thursday, it was reported that UEM Sunrise and Eco World were expected to merge by year-end via a share swap, to form one of Malaysia’s largest real estate companies by market value.

However, the following day, UEM Sunrise said it had not made or received any corporate proposals on a potential merger with Eco World. - FMT