THE EDGE summaries 17 March - 23 March

Higher price for Menara YNH

• YNH Properties has identified a buyer (a source says an Australian buyer) for the remaining 50% of the space in the 45-storey Menara YNH
• The offer price is higher than Kuwait Finance House's January offer of RM920 million for the existing half
• An observer pointed out that while property market in Singapore might slow down, the Malaysian property are still very attractive
• The YNH-KFH deal is supposed to be inked next month
• YNH Prop is now sitting on unbilled sales of approximately RM1.3bil (taking into account KFH's offer of RM920m)
• YNH's bread and butter is said to be its income stream from Manjung development in Perak, but it is also expanding its reach into Kuala Lumpur (have plans to launch 2 projects in Mont Kiara)
• Analysts polled by Bloomberg put a buy call with an average 12-month target price of RM4.02

Maybank leads in race for Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII)

• Maybank is believed to be the frontrunner for Temasek's stake in BII, despite a higher bid from Bank of China (BOC)
• The deal may be closed as early as end of this month
• Temasek has short-listed 3 bids: Maybank, BOC and HSBC Holdings
• The 42% stake is worth about US$800mil (about RM2.52 billion)
• Apart from BII, Temasek has a controlling stake in Bank Danamon, and the new ruling does not allow a foreign investor to own stakes in more than one bank
• In FY2007, BII generated a net profit of RM140.78mil on the back of RM1.32bil revenue
• Aseambankers (Maybank investment arm) is expecting exciting times, as it will soon announce a regional strategic partner

TM's Indon unit to spin off towers

• PT Excelcomindo Pratama Tbk (XL), the Indonesian subsidiary of TM International, plans to spin off its telecommunication towers and extract its business value, say sources
• XL has about 10,000 towers and reports suggest that it is willing to share up to 7,000 of these with third parties
• Last December, India's Spice (an associate of TM) sold its entire portfolio of 875 telecom towers to an independent player, so this concept of spinning off the tower business is nothing new to TMI
• But industry players reminded that a new rule is being passed in Indonesia which states the sale of telecommunication towers can only be done to local parties
• So will XL take the route of a special purpose vehicle and invite equity participation to deflect any negative sentiment about foreign ownership?

More to Chua's exit than meets the eye?

• Datuk Chua Ma Yu sold 14.02% in Star Cruises at a RM408.5mil loss after barely eight months of picking up the block
• Chua reported "subprime and high energy costs" as reasons for selling at a loss
• But EDGE suspects something else as a reason for such sale by posing the question "but is Chua really cutting his losses at Star Cruises?"
  
• People familiar with Chua and his ways point out several oddities in this deal
  
• The more glaring point is the fact that the 14.02% block Chua bought from Resorts has now been sold to the Lim family, namely Golden Hope Ltd
• Is this a way to bypass related-party transaction without calling an extraordinary general meeting? Was the block parked under Chua's name for this purpose?