KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 26): The Malaysian and Thai governments have given their conditional approval for Sime Darby Bhd’s sale of its 30% stake in Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.
Sime Darby group chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Jeffri Salim Davidson said the conditional approval was received from Thailand’s Trade Competition Commission and Malaysia’s Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs.
“We are going through the conditions, and that should hopefully be completed within the next month or so,” he said during the group’s quarterly results briefing.
In April, Sime Darby signed agreements with Tesco Holdings BV and Tesco plc, as well as the stake’s buyer, CP Retail Development Company Ltd. The move was part of a larger deal between Tesco plc and Thailand’s CP Group signed in March to sell Tesco’s business in Thailand and Malaysia to CP Group for an enterprise value of US$10.6 billion (RM43.15 billion).
Sime Darby has registered a gain of RM270 million from the sale of its stake in Tesco Stores in Malaysia.
On whether Sime Darby will be looking at selling more non-core assets in the financial year ending June 30, 2021 (FY21), Jeffri said the group is looking at various assets for disposal.
Noting that market conditions are weak at present, he said the group is not “in a desperate hurry to push things through”.
“We want to wait, so that we can get a good deal, before we dispose of any more assets,” he said.
At 3.55pm today, Sime Darby shares were up one sen or 0.42% at RM2.41, valuing the group at RM16.46 billion.