Khazanah as an Active and Responsible Domestic Shareholder
Our ambition as an active shareholder for our Malaysian assets is to ensure the commercial viability of our investments.
At the same time, we work to align our strategic assets with broader developmental goals, such as guiding Boards and Management through the appointment of Nominee Directors on the Boards of our investee companies. As these Malaysian assets form the bulk of our commercial portfolio, we have identified that this creates a concentration risk that we manage by portfolio diversification but beyond that, we also recognise that our management, value creation/preservation, and stewardship of these assets require certain approaches that will better enhance our Malaysia (and PIPE) portfolio to outrun its beta, generate returns and become investments of choice.
Balancing Development and Shareholder Value
How do we create returns while supporting national development?
Khazanah recognises that it is crucial to identify/navigate trade-offs between policy and government interests (managing critical assets and developing catalytic/new growth areas) with commercial returns. However, these commercial returns are also needed to sustain and increase Khazanah’s capacity to fund developmental work. Khazanah needs to unlock returns via Value Creation Plans (“VCP”) which will require air cover/policy support to complete the developmental funding loop. From a portfolio rebalancing standpoint, decisions to sell/hold are driven by key questions regarding VCP value uplift and probability of success i.e. conditions of success and likelihood for KNB to deliver on these conditions.
Khazanah focuses on four main areas in our role as an active corporate player, driving value creation and value preservation in Malaysia:
Crowding-in of private investors (both local and foreign)
allows space for investors to bring in capital, expertise, and scale to reinvigorate the Malaysian market
Driving best-in-class performance in operating and capital efficiency
crucial in mature sectors with slower growth rate, hence needing differentiators of costs and margins between companies
Future-proofing Corporate Malaysia
key element is refreshing Board/Management for dynamism and competence, whilst having new partners/investors to drive companies to the next level whilst embracing technology and sustainability
Maturing the regulatory environment
working with regulators towards consistent, fair, and sustainable policies to protect consumer and business interests
With the convergence of these four approaches, Khazanah recognises that establishing and cascading Shareholder Expectations and Investment Stewardship is paramount as an active and responsible shareholder, to achieve the targets set out by these approaches.
Hence, our shareholder expectations are for:
01 /
Portfolio companies to generate long-term shareholder value
02 /
Board of Directors to hold ultimate responsibility for corporate strategy, monitoring, and oversight, where relevant and available to us
03 /
Chairholder selection – a leader who sets the right culture
04 /
Management team selection – incentivised to be aligned with the company’s success
05 /
Shareholder rights protection, in line with Voting Guidelines
06 /
Sustainability considerations to future-proof investee companies
By clearly outlining these expectations and aligning these with our approaches as an active corporate player in Malaysia, Khazanah is able to tightly balance both our commercial and developmental goals, adjusting to the existing markets while driving the value creation and preservation of our assets for better growth, better performance, and better viability.