Quick take: Tenaga rebounds 1.8% from steep decline

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) rebounded in early trade Friday after yesterday’s selling pressure.

The energy giant is the top gainer on Bursa Malaysia, gaining 1.82%, or 22 sen with over one million shares traded.

TNB came under selling pressure on Thursday after its major shareholder Khazanah Nasional disposed of 85 million shares for RM1bil.

Before the placement, Khazanah was the largest shareholder in the power giant at 28.76% or 1.635 billion shares followed by the Employees Provident Fund with 14.05%. Skim Amanah Saham Bumiputera owns 9.10% and KWAP 5.45%.

The company’s share price saw almost RM3bil being erased from its market capitalisation to RM68.58bil yesterday, after its shares slumped to the lowest since March 2016.

TNB shares have been on a decline since hitting RM16.12 almost a year ago on May 4, 2018.

Last week, TNB chairman Tan Sri Leo Moggie said the electricity tariff in Malaysia was unlikely to see any changes despite there being a dip in global coal and natural gas prices.

He said this was because the current price of around US$90 per tonne for coal and RM28 per MMBtu for natural gas was still higher than the base rate of US$75 and RM27.20, respectively, from the previous review.