KUALA LUMPUR: THE Minister of Finance Inc (MoF) is believed to have finalised the sale of Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Bhd (PNMB) to Sutera Bakti Sdn Bhd —a company linked to tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary.
A source familiar with the matter told New Straits Times yesterday that the purchase price for the wholly-owned subsidiary of MoF was more than RM130 million.
“The deal has been finalised with full settlement fulfilled by Sutera Bakti as at end December last year,” said the source.
PNMB is one of MoF’s most lucrative assets as the national printer received contracts reportedly worth RM500 million as at 2015.
The company’s clients are mainly government ministries and departments where it provides a range of printing services, including digital imaging and archiving solutions, managing print services and print room services, information products and supplies of A4 papers.
Syed Mokhtar already owns two printing-related assets after his purchase of Syed Hussain Publications
Sdn Bhd’s financial daily The Malaysian Reserve in 2014 and MPH Group Sdn Bhd.
Several PNMB directors, when contacted, declined to comment on the deal.
Talk that MoF was looking to sell PNMB started to surface about three years ago, with the rationale being to add revenue in the wake of weaker oil prices.
Besides Sutera Bakti, other suitors were said to include Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd and Datasonic Group Bhd.
PNMB has a long history in the printing industry. It was first known as Jabatan Percetakan Negara (JPN) during the British occupation of Malaya in 1888.
JPN was corporatised in 1993 and changed its name to PNMB and was fully owned by the government under MoF.
PNMB’s headquarters is in Kuala Lumpur with branches in Alor Star, Penang, Ipoh, Malacca, Johor Baru, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Baru, Kuching, Miri and Putrajaya.
However, due to the shift towards a paperless government, and the evolution from offset printing to digital printing, the company’s profit dropped in recent years.
According to PNMB’s website, the company has maintained annual revenue of about RM160 million, while net profit averaged between RM15 million and RM20 million.
It remains to be seen how the purchase will be affected by anti-trust issues, as the enlarged printing entity could potentially have a dominant position in the market.
Previous reports had raised the issue that whichever company bought PNMB could lead to a monopoly of government business.