Major shake-up in Khazanah

Khazanah managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar says the fund

KUALA LUMPUR: There is a major shake-up at Khazanah Nasional Bhd following the en bloc resignations from its entire board of directors.

Khazanah has confirmed that all nine members of the board including managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar have offered to resign from the board.

In a statement Thursday, Khazanah said the move was done in order to facilitate a smooth and orderly transition under the new Government.

“The current Board have been honoured to serve, and feels it appropriate to offer the new

Government the discretion and reaffirm the prerogative to form the new Board.

“We will issue a further statement once we have further details of the reconstitution of the board,” the sovereign wealth fund said.

Earlier, Singapore Straits Times reported that Azman and eight other members of board have submitted their resignations to the government.

According to the report, Azman and the Khazanah directors held a special board meeting late in the afternoon on Tuesday and decided to sign undated resignation letters that were subsequently submitted to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's administration.

The meeting, which was chaired by Khazanah executive committee chairman Tan Sri Md Nor Md Yusof, reached the unanimous decision that Dr Mahathir's new Pakatan Harapan coalition government should be allowed to determine the new leadership structure at the sovereign wealth fund.

The mass resignations follow Dr Mahathir’s purported public criticism against Khazanah in which he said the fund had deviated from the original purpose of its creation.

 

 

Khazanah’s board members included Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, Tan Sri Md Nor Md Yusof Tan Sri Mohamed Azman Yahya, Datuk Mohammed Azlan Hashim, Tan Sri Andrew Sheng Len Tao, Tan Sri Raja Arshad Raja Uda, Datuk Nirmala Menon, and Yeo Kar Peng.

 

It has been speculated that the mass resignations at Khazanah will pave the way for more top level changes in government-linked companies.

 

Khazanah holds stakes in national utility Tenaga Nasional Bhd, telecommunications giant Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Axiata Group Bhd, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Malaysia Airports Holdings and IHH Healthcare. Khazanah is also the sole shareholder of Malaysia Airlines.