This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 29, 2025 - January 4, 2026
RECENTLY delisted KNM Group Bhd has the dubious distinction of being one of only a handful of companies to have been “awarded” Turkey of the Year more than once.
To recap, at end-2022, KNM bagged Turkey of the Year after the company fumbled — continuously — with main asset Borsig GmbH, which it had acquired in 2008 for €350 million.
Then, Borsig was to be sold to Vorsprung Industries GmbH for a fire-sale price tag of €220.8 million or RM1.03 billion, but the deadline for the sale was missed, after which an initial public offering (IPO) was pushed for in Singapore, “with a view of achieving a market capitalisation of up to US$300 million, or its Singapore dollar equivalent”, which also did not materialise.
Another plan in 2022 was for KNM’s wholly-owned unit, FBM Hudson Italiana SpA, to be listed on the Catalist, the sponsor-supervised board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd, but this too did not come to fruition.
Over the years, there has been much flipping about between a direct sale and an IPO. This flip-flopping resulted in KNM tumbling into the Practice Note 17 (PN17) category, which was among the reasons the company was included in the list of turkeys three years ago.
Fast-forward to 2025, and KNM is still grappling with the same issues it had in 2022. This time around, the engineering outfit seemed to test regulator Bursa Malaysia’s patience as well.
KNM was delisted on Nov 5, after Bursa rejected the company’s regularisation plan announced in October, which entailed — wait for it — the sale of Borsig to Japan-based NGK Insulators Ltd for €270 million or RM1.26 billion.
Bursa rejected the regularisation plan as KNM’s Malaysian operations following the disposal of Borsig were uninspiring and chalked up revenues of only RM6.44 million and RM1.38 million in FY2024 and 1HFY2025 respectively. To strengthen its case, Bursa highlighted that KNM’s existing order book post-sale was a paltry RM2.83 million as at July 31, 2025, and thus deemed insufficient to keep KNM going as a publicly traded entity.
To put things in perspective, KNM suffered a net loss of RM84.82 million on a mere RM1.38 million in revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2025. Its finance cost for the six months in review was RM51.83 million.
As at end-June this year, KNM had cash and cash equivalents of a mere RM8.97 million, current liabilities of RM1.38 billion and no long-term debt commitments, while its accumulated losses stood at RM1.72 billion.
To cut a long story short, KNM was in dire need of slashing its debt, and the single most logical and doable plan involved the sale of Borsig, the proceeds of which would then be used to pare down borrowings, and rescue KNM.
Thus, Bursa’s rejection of the regularisation plan totally scuttled KNM plans.
On Oct 7, KNM appealed Bursa’s rejection of its regularisation plan.
MAA Group Bhd (KL:MAA) — which has 19.37% equity interest in KNM, making it the single largest shareholder of the oil and gas engineering company — had on Oct 9 requisitioned for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to pass a special resolution on the sale of Borsig for €270 million to NGK, more or less in defiance of Bursa’s rejection of the regularisation plan to sell Borsig.
However, KNM’s board of directors talked MAA out of such a course of action, which could be deemed antagonising. Due to the regulatory requirements of Bursa, KNM would be unable to meet the timeline to convene the requested EGM and push through the Borsig sale before the delisting deadline.
“As the company is currently in PN17 status, the board of KNM must strictly adhere to the Main Market Listing Requirements to mitigate any risks to the company’s listing status. Given these constraints, the board has decided that it will not be possible to convene the requested EGM,” KNM said.
Then on Oct 27, KNM withdrew the appeal against delisting, putting it on course to be removed from the local bourse on Nov 5 — with the company’s plan likely being that once KNM was no longer a publicly traded company under the purview of Bursa, an EGM could be convened and the plan to sell Borsig pushed through.
However, not to be outdone, Bursa served KNM, MAA and a few other related entities with an originating summons on Oct 28 to prevent the convening of an EGM at KNM to dispose of Borsig, with a hearing set for Oct 29.
On Oct 29, KNM announced the High Court had directed the defendants KNM and MAA, among others, to file affidavits in reply but did not issue any order to prevent the KNM EGM on Oct 30 — a small victory for KNM.
Then on Oct 30, KNM announced that at the EGM, a motion to adjourn the meeting was duly passed by shareholders, and the EGM was adjourned to 10.30am on Nov 6, a day after its delisting.
On Nov 6, KNM’s shareholders approved the €270 million sale of Borsig, which should have been the final condition precedent before the sale to NGK.
However, on Nov 27, KNM announced that the €270 million sale of Borsig to NGK of Japan missed its Nov 26, 2025 deadline, as NGK was concerned about Bursa’s legal action against KNM prior to its delisting on Nov 5, 2025.
NGK sought more time to assess the impact of the delisting.
KNM has languished in the cash-strapped PN17 category since October 2022, and all attempts to revive the company have been futile. To make matters worse, KNM has even lost its listing status, thus removing it from public scrutiny.
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