TIME Engineering Bhd is in talks with Khazanah Nasional Bhd to either reduce or restructure its shareholding in the former’s associate Time dotCom Bhd (TdC) to reduce the latter’s losses.
Time managing director Amiruddin Abdul Aziz said: “We have to wait for Khazanah to come up with a final proposal.”
He said the final decision to divest or restructure TdC will be left to Khazanah.
“Our shares in TdC Bhd is just 39.86%, it (the disposal of TdC) is an option.
“We, together with Khazanah, are trying to resolve this issue either through divestment or a restructuring,” he told reporters after Time’s AGM in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Amiruddin said the losses incurred by Time came from interest costs related to its investment in TdC and the losses accrued at TdC.
Time’s debt level was at RM560 million in principal alone.
For its financial year ended Dec 31, 2006 (FY06), Time narrowed its losses to RM34.68 million from RM266.04 million in FY05.
The net losses incurred by TdC were also narrowed to RM177.78 million from the previous RM238.89 million.
On Time’s outlook for this year, Amiruddin said the company had set a revenue growth target of 18%, and an average growth rate of 15% until 2009.
Amiruddin said the growth for FY07 would mainly come from its subsidiary, TIME Systems Integrators Sdn Bhd, which had been awarded the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) project by the Education Ministry while the outsourcing and e-content business could be among other new growth areas it was looking at.
“The biggest area that we are looking at is the infrastructure project using technology. This is an area that we think we can develop,” he added.
Meanwhile, Amiruddin said the company was keen to participate in the Penang monorail project, especially on the information technology (IT) component.
“We are looking at it and if there is an IT component, we wish to participate,” he said, adding that the company has not submitted any proposals for the project.-TheEdgeDaily
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