Sime Darby defers listing of motor division

KUALA LUMPUR: Sime Darby Bhd has deferred the listing of its motors division from the first half of 2015 to the second half of the year due to the weak economic landscape.
Its president and group chief executive Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh (pix) said a final decision will be made after considering the external landscape.
"If you want to do a listing, the intention is to achieve the best valuation. So when the external landscape is not conducive, it would not be advisable to put the company on a listing mode," he told reporters at a briefing on its quarterly results yesterday.
He said consumers have adopted a wait-and-see attitude with expectations of lower vehicle prices after the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but the group does not expect this to happen.
The Malaysian Automotive Association has projected a small growth of 2% year-on-year in total industry volume (TIV) to 680,000 units this year.
On listing plans for its Indonesian plantation operations, Bakke said it is still considering three options.
"One of them is to list our operations separately. The other option is to identify another company which has sizeable area planted with oil palm to be merged and put into a new entity, which would then be listed. There's also the option of identifying a listed entity for a reverse take over. There are three different options for this. We are working on it," he said, adding that it will go to the market when it has the right valuation.
"The governing principle is valuation, the right (price to earnings) PE multiple otherwise shareholders will come back and ask why are we listing this business when it's not going to be beneficial," he said.