THE RM5bil injection into ValueCap Sdn Bhd will be used to buy local shares for long-term investments.
Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the prices of shares were low and shares with potential were bought for long-term investment.
He said this in his reply to Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi (BN – Batu Pahat), who said Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (PKR – Bandar Tun Razak) claimed that the RM5bil to buy shares would end up providing an outflow of funds for the country. Najib denied the allegation and said local shares were bought.
At the Parliament lobby, Najib said shareholders of ValueCap – the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Khazanah and Permodalan Nasional Bhd – had received good returns.
“The shareholders are happy with the performance on ValueCap and they have got some returns in the past. The EPF is managed by the Government, so I don’t see any problem,” he said, adding that ValueCap had been performing and the value of its shares had increased.
Asked how ValueCap would be able to fork out the RM5bil to pay their debt, he replied that shareholders would decide on the best way to settle the issue.
Earlier, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua (DAP – PJ Utara) questioned if the RM5bil injection into ValueCap was a “rescue package” to repay its RM5.1bil debt due in February next year.
He said MalaysianInsider.com had reported that ValueCap had a RM5.1bil debt to bondholders EPF, Khazanah and Permodalan Nasional.
“The latest audited report of ValueCap in 2007 also confirmed that there is an existing ‘long-term deferred liability’ of that amount,” he told reporters and called for Najib to tell the truth.
According to documents from the Securities Commission website, Pua said, ValueCap had issued bonds on Feb 28, 2003, which would mature three years from the date of issuance. It can be extended for another three years, as allowed in the terms of the bond in 2006.
