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From Asian Wall Street Journal
12th October 2000

Sale of Stake in Malaysian Rail Project Doesn't Stop Firm's Expansion Efforts

By LESLIE LOPEZ Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan Chee Yioun of the Berjaya group of companies has sold his roughly 30% equity interest in a long-delayed light-rail project in Kuala Lumpur.

Bankers and financial executives close to the businessman said that Tan Sri Tan, as he is known, sold his equity in privately held KL PRT Sdn. Bhd. two months ago to a group of investors for about 30 million ringgit ($7.9 million). "It's a tough business, so we got out" said a Berjaya executive close to Tan Sri Tan. He declined to identify the new investors.

Tan Sri Tan's departure isn't stopping KL PRT's other main promoter, David Chew Keat Soon, from trying to expand the company's transportation business, however. Several government officials said that KL PRT has submitted a proposal to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government to build a light-rail system in the country's sprawling new administrative capital of Putrajaya and, at the same time, to manufacture railcars for the system locally.

Government officials said the new KL PRT proposal is being studied. They declined to estimate the cost of the Putrajaya project. Private-sector executives familiar with Mr. Chew's plans said that the businessman will be seeking funding -- estimated at more than 600 million ringgit -- under a government assistance program for infrastructure projects to help finance the Putrajaya rail system and to build a facility to produce the railcars. KL PRT has already received about 400 million ringgit in government funds for the construction of its light-rail system -- featuring a monorail -- in Kuala Lumpur. Construction began in 1996 but has been repeatedly delayed and is far from completion.

Mr. Chew is associated with Malaysia's more audacious infrastructure undertakings in the 1990s, including the privatization of the country's sewerage system. That project was awarded to a company controlled by associates of Tan Sri Tan in 1993. Together with Tan Sri Tan, Mr. Chew was also the promoter of a now-abandoned plan to build the world's longest building on stilts above a river flowing through Kuala Lumpur.

Mr. Chew didn't respond to requests to discuss his latest plans. But bankers and some government officials expressed skepticism over Mr. Chew's Putrajaya light-rail and railcar manufacturing proposals.

Bankers note that passenger traffic in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya probably won't be sufficient to fund the cost of building the network for years to come. Currently, Kuala Lumpur's two other privately owned light-rail networks are in the process of being taken over by the government because they can't meet their debt obligations.

The bankers and government officials also suggest that Mr. Chew's earlier projects haven't panned out as planned. Since the national sewerage project was handed over to the private sector, it has been plagued with problems and ownership of the venture has changed hands several times. It was recently taken over by the government.

Mr. Chew's and Tan Sri Tan's plan to build the longest building, a ten-story, two kilometer-long structure called the KL Linear City project, was scrapped after Asia's economic crisis hit in mid-1997.

Another possible handicap for Mr. Chew's new endeavors is the loss of his powerful patron, Tan Sri Tan, as a partner. Tan Sri Tan, who is a close friend of Prime Minister Mahathir, was instrumental in paving the way for Mr. Chew to pitch his earlier projects to government planners.

Write to Leslie Lopez at leslie.lopez@awsj.com