KUALA LUMPUR (March 21): Khazanah Nasional Bhd's profit from operations increased to RM1.6 billion in 2022, from RM670 million in 2021, mainly due to monetisation activities and lower impairment in its portfolio.
The Malaysian sovereign wealth fund said its net asset value (NAV), however, saw a decline of 5% to RM81 billion, from RM86 billion in 2021, because of the global market downtrend.
Khazanah managing director Datuk Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir said despite challenging global market conditions, the fund delivered a satisfactory performance for the first full year of implementing its refreshed strategy.
"Our nation-building mandate of delivering long-term sustainable value remains unchanged, and we will ride through the short-term market volatility, and remain focused on our long-term goals," Amirul Feisal said in a statement on Tuesday (March 21).
He noted that there are ongoing concerns that the inflationary environment and tightening monetary conditions will lead to a global recession, exacerbated by continuing geopolitical risks.
"However, Khazanah’s disciplined investment approach, as guided by our long-term strategic asset allocation and active portfolio management, helped navigate the volatility in the markets, as we maintained discipline in our value creation and monetisation efforts."
Khazanah declared a dividend of RM500 million for 2022 to the government of Malaysia, with cumulative dividends declared since 2004 amounting to RM17.1 billion.
Its debt increased to RM49.1 billion, compared with RM48.5 billion in the previous year, while its realisable asset value-over-debt ratio remained healthy at 2.7 times, on track to its long-term target of three to four times.
Khazanah said it is focused on building long-term financial returns, and continuing its portfolio rebalancing towards the targeted strategic asset allocation, with deployments into public equities, private equities and real assets.
"RM6.6 billion was deployed in new investments, and RM2.5 billion was raised from monetisation of assets. The investment portfolio rolling the NAV time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) recorded a 2.2% in its four-year rolling TWRR," it added.
Moving forward, in anticipation of another challenging year ahead with below-trend global growth, on the back of a monetary policy shift to combat inflation, plus persistent geopolitical tensions, Khazanah said it will continue to remain vigilant in its investing activities, with the aim of maintaining portfolio resilience through diversification.
Despite the uncertainties, Khazanah remains optimistic about identifying investment opportunities within emerging global trends, structural changes to the multipolar global system, and the growing challenges of climate change, energy transition and sustainability.
Khazanah said it remains firmly committed to its role as an active steward and shareholder of its portfolio companies in Malaysia, as it seeks performance, value creation and long-term shareholder value.