Is something brewing at Scomi Group?

By ZAIDI ISHAM ISMAIL
editor@dagangnews.com

KUALA LUMPUR Nov 11 - Scomi Group Berhad has  been a Practice Note 17 or PN17 company since 2020.

It is a classification by Bursa Malaysia for financially distressed firms.

There has been no news from the company for the longest time.

But on Monday, the oil and gas and engineering firm stirred the market when its director Shah Hakim Zain announced to Bursa Malaysia that he had sold 20 million of his Scomi shares.

Shah Hakim had sold his stake to Rentak Rimbun Sdn Bhd of which he has an 8.7% and 1.2% indirect and direct stake respectively.

What does this all mean?

Is this a precursor to something big that will be unveiled in the next few days or weeks?

Has Scomi found a white knight?

"Shah Hakim might just want to liquidate his shares to get cash.

‘’But a corporate captain selling his shares in his company could be interpreted in two ways, he is either abandoning the firm or raising cash to save the company," a fund manager at a government-linked firm told DagangNews.com.

To recap, the company's subsidiary Scomi Transit was supposed to refurbish and deliver 7 trains worth some RM300 million to KL Monorail last month.

But is already November and there has been no news.

The company had forged the monorail deal in 2018 with Prasarana Malaysia Berhad witnessed by the then Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

A blogger going by the name of Nuclearmanbursa said rumours are rife that Shah Hakim might be in talks with the government to request for a time extension to deliver the trains.

Scomi Group has been a PN17 company since December 2020 with an estimated debt of around RM460 million.

Prior to that, its unit Scomi Energy became a PN17 concern in January 2020.

The company once made monorails and had a presence in Brazil and India.

But with the recent corporate developments, who knows that there will be a white knight to rescue Scomi Group out of its predicament. - DagangNews.com