Pos Malaysia to spend more
POS Malaysia Bhd will spend more next year to boost operations as it expects flat earnings growth for the current year ending Dec 31, 2001, hurt by a sluggish economy and increasingly popular e-mail.
The company is spending RM60 million for this year and expects a higher capital expenditure for 2002 to improve and build facilities, according to chief executive officer Abdul Malek Ahmad Shazili.
Pos Malaysia also expects to unveil early next year its new five-year blueprint that redefines its core business of mailing service, Abdul Malek said.
“We are actively putting on strategies of the company’s direction in the next five years. It should be ready early next year.”
He said while the core business of mailing service would remain a focus, a greater emphasis would be placed on e-commerce and business mail such as direct mail marketing which only targets certain customers.
Of anticipated flat earnings for 2001, Abdul Malek said it was due to lower mail volume growth from over seven per cent in 2000 to an expected three to five per cent this year.
The national postal service made a net profit of RM54 million last year on the back of a RM580 million turnover.
It expects to handle about 1.1 billion letters and parcels in mail volume this year.
Abdul Malek spoke after the initial launch of the company’s portal www.posmalaysia.com in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Contents of the portal more or less provide a glimpse of Pos Malaysia’s future business direction.
A case in point is its POSCard and POSPoint services.
The POSCard enables greeting cards for all occasions to be sent electronically through the Internet.
Payments are made through POSPoint, a prepaid payment system.
POSPoint cards are available online or at post offices, and come in RM10, RM30, RM50 and RM100 denominations.
Pos Malaysia would introduce other online services in the next few months in the area of e-commerce supported by the prepaid payment system, Abdul Malek said.
He said the Pos Malaysia portal offers online information and e-commerce to complement its present post office services.
“The portal will provide much faster and convenient services to the public and corporate customers.”
Abdul Malek also said Pos Malaysia’s name would be changed to reflect its privatisation and pending listing.
It was now in talks with owner Phileo Allied Bhd on the name change as well as on assuming the latter’s listing status.
The Government in August announced that it had used a special purpose vehicle to retain control of Pos Malaysia in the backdoor listing of the utility.
The SPV is Aroma Teraju Sdn Bhd, in which the Minister of Finance Inc has a 55 per cent stake while Bank Simpanan Malaysia owns 45 per cent share.
By using this company, the Government now has a 31.5 per cent direct and indirect stake in PhileoAllied, into which Pos Malaysia was being injected in an RM800 million deal.
PhileoAllied, a cash-rich shell company, signed a deal with MoF in late May to buy the entire 98.23 million Pos Malaysia shares for RM550 million cash and RM250 million worth of loan stocks.
The loan stocks can be converted into shares, consequently allowing the MoF to control more than 30 per cent of PhileoAllied.
zuraimi
Copyright 2001 NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc
