KUALA LUMPUR – Gamuda Bhd, the owner of the four highway concessions that are proposed for sale to Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat Bhd (ALR), suggested that the offer made by the non-profit company is better than the one it received from the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government in 2019 on five separate counts.
This includes a lower value of buyout, reduction of concession periods and the fact that the government will not be spending a single sen for the acquisition.
In a letter to media editors today, Gamuda’s deputy group managing director Mohammed Rashdan Mohd Yusof noted that ALR’s total enterprise value of RM5.48 billion is RM720 million lower than the 2019 offer.
He explained that the primary reason for this is because ALR’s offer is dated two years after the previous offer was made by the then government, and therefore, the cashflow during this period would not be included in the company’s discounted valuation.
Rashdan said ALR’s proposal also has no recourse to the government as there is neither a government guarantee nor any implied financial undertaking by the federal administration.
“This is clearly very different from the 2019 offer where the government undertook to do the acquisition directly, and have the funding on its own balance sheet,” he said.
With the government today not required to pay any toll compensation subsidy if the ALR deal goes through, Rashdan said this would translate to an estimated savings of RM4.3 billion, which will be “truly at no cost”.
He added that since ALR is the one buying the highways as opposed to Putrajaya as per the 2019 offer, the present government will not be required to spend a single sen on the acquisition or worry about the highways’ operations and maintenance.
Additionally, Rashdan pointed out that the current offer would see the concession periods for the highways be reduced, as ALR is obligated to redeem its sukuk funding as soon as it can.
“Once it does, it must return all the four highway concessions back to the government… Higher actual traffic achieved will reduce actual extension required because ALR’s sukuk will be redeemed much earlier. In other words, the higher the traffic, the shorter the concessions,” he said.
On top of this, Rashdan said the ALR structure will ensure the government maintains its current privatisation agenda, unlike the nationalisation of the highways under the 2019 offer.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob had announced that toll rates on four highways in the Klang Valley will remain unchanged until the end of their concession period through the restructuring of the concessions.
The highways involved are Shah Alam Expressway (Kesas), Western Kuala Lumpur Traffic Dispersal System (Sprint Highway), Damansara-Puchong Expressway (LDP), and Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (Smart). – The Vibes, April 5, 2022
