Posted on June 12, 2012, Tuesday
FELDA Global Ventures Holdings’s (FGV) earnings will also be enjoyed by the public as its listing also involves state governments and institutional investors, the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Ahmad Maslan said according to the latest data, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and Tabung Haji which have 10.85 million and seven million contributors respectively, as well as the Employees Provision Fund (EPF) which has 13.15 million members and the Retirement Fund Incorporated (KWAP) with 140,000 members, are among the institutional investors in FGV.
“This means the public has the largest share of Felda’s prosperity dividends. There has never been a listing on Bursa Malaysia with shares divided among so many Malaysians,” he said when responding to Datuk Abdul Rahman Manan (BN-Paya Besar) on the factors which enabled FGV to raise capital when listed.
Ahmad said in increasing its downstream capacity, FGV proposed to establish a strategic partnership venture with commodity giant, Louis Dreyfus Commodities (LDC), and the decision was made after careful study and taking into account social and commercial capacity factors.
He said a memorandum of understanding was signed with LDC on May 14 for collaboration in sales and marketing, including a commercial agreement to establish a framework between both companies to explore downstream investment opportunities related to oil palm with focus on China and India.
To a supplementary question from Datuk Saifudin Nasution Ismail (PKR-Machang) on managing Malay reserve land which was included in the lease of land from Felda Plantation to FGV, Ahmad said the government had referred to legal experts in managing the reserve land.
He said managing 34,968 ha of Malay reserve land out of the total 355,000 ha of land leased was not reckless.
“When we failed to list Felda in 2003 and 2004, it was because we could not find a formidable long-term lease formula. Now, the land is not lost, but we have leased it out,” he said. On the guarantee that land which had been gazetted for non-agricultural use was not used for other purposes, Ahmad said: “Land which has been gazetted for public facilities will not be touched.” — Bernama
