Kramat to focus on property after revamp

KRAMAT Tin Dredging Bhd will focus on property development as its core business after the completion of its restructuring exercise by end-August.

“The company has suffered a loss due to the declining source of tin in the country,” director of corporate affairs, Yoong Nim Chee, said after the company’s annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur today.

He said the company had to look for other businesses to regularise its financial position to fulfil Bursa Malaysia’s listing requirements.

Yoong said the company was lucky because it had two prime pieces of land in Putrajaya and Johor Baru.

“The company is eyeing the increase in land bank after the completion of the restructuring exercise,” he said.

The restructuring involves the injection of the entire equity interest in Setia Putrajaya Sdn Bhd and 108.8 hectares of freehold land in Johor Baru into a new company, SPJ Corp Bhd, which would assume the listing status of Kramat.

By Bernama

Ranhill offers hospital skills

ENGINEERING group Ranhill Bhd is eyeing hospital jobs in the Middle East and Southeast Asia that are similar in nature to its Women and Children's Hospital project in Kuala Lumpur.

"The Ranhill group is moving globally in all directions and we are looking for construction activities such as to build hospitals.

"We built the Serdang Hospital in 2005 and now have a contract to construct the Women and Children's Hospital. So we do have the expertise," its executive director Datuk Chandrasekar Suppiah told Business Times.

The Women and Children's Hospital Package 2 contract, worth RM720 million, was awarded to Ranhill in March. The hospital will be built by unit Ranhill Engineering and Constructors Sdn Bhd.

The contract involves piling, superstructure, mechanical and electrical, clinical and non-clinical fit-out works, and building the hospital on the premises of the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

Ranhill group president and chief executive Tan Sri Hamdan Mohamad said that a bulk of contribution from Package 2 will flow through in its next financial year ending June 30 2009 as construction will begin only in August after the completion of Package 1.

In the financial year to June 2007, Ranhill posted profit of RM117 million and revenue of RM1.47 billion.

Package 1, worth RM16 million, involves demolishing existing buildings and diverting services at the General Hospital to pave the way for construction. Works started in December last year.

"The Package 1 works have been carried out well according to programme and undertaken sensitively due to the proximity within a functioning hospital, with primary consideration to ensure continued operations at the General Hospital," Hamdan said.

Ranhill is positioning itself to carry out Package 2 on schedule and to complete the project by December 2011, he added.

The 13-storey hospital, within a six-storey podium to cater for both clinical work flows and patient needs, will be assigned as the national referral hospital on health matters concerning women birthing cycle and paediatric ailments.

It will have 600 beds, with allowance for 100 more beds for future expansion, supported by secondary and tertiary clinical care services.

Hamdan said the hospital project will open new avenues for the group, and it may undertake similar work for clients overseas.

Ranhill has a very strong order book for engineering, procurement, commissioning and construction work under its belt, which will last the company for another seven years.

By New Straits Times (by Sharen Kaur)

Billionaire close to getting loan to buy Shaw Brothers

CHINESE real estate billionaire Yeung Kwok Keung will get a bank loan soon to buy Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Ltd, which controls Hong Kong’s largest television company, two people familiar with the deal said.

The long-term debt funding of about HK$7 billion (US$896 million) will be concluded within five to 10 days after arranger Citigroup Inc gets a number of banks to jointly offer the loan, said the people, who declined to be identified before an announcement.

The debt-funding will boost Yeung’s ability to offer at least HK$10 billion for Shaw Brothers and gain 26 per cent of Television Broadcasts Ltd, the world’s biggest producer of Chinese-language programs.

Henderson Land Development Co chairman Lee Shau-kee has agreed to provide HK$3 billion to Yeung for the purchase, the Standard newspaper reported last month, citing people it didn’t identify.

“There is some important synergy between the Chinese real estate development business and TV business here,” said Kenny Tang, director of Tung Tai Securities Co in Hong Kong.

“Developers in China spend a lot of money putting advertisements on TV stations in Hong Kong. They’re a major customer.”

Kung Fu Movies

Yeung is bidding for Shaw Brothers on his own rather than through Country Garden Holdings Co, the Chinese real estate developer of which he’s chairman. Yeung’s daughter Yang Huiyan, who owns 58.5 per cent of Country Garden, is the richest person in China, according to Forbes magazine in November.

James Griffiths, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Citigroup, and Callis Lau, a public relations consultant for Country Garden, declined to comment. TVB spokeswoman Winnie Ho declined to comment.

Sir Run Run Shaw, 100, owns 75 per cent of Shaw Brothers and controls an additional 6.2 per cent of the TV operator through the Shaw Foundation Hong Kong Ltd, his charity.

Run Run Shaw made China’s first film in 1924 and popularised kung fu movies around the world. The Shaw Brothers Studio he founded with his now-deceased brothers made the cult futuristic film “Bladerunner.”

By Bloomberg