Khazanah Nasional sees 2022 profits go up to RM1.6b compared to RM670m in 2021

KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — Khazanah Nasional Berhad today announced a profit of RM1.6 billion from its operations last year, a jump from the RM670 million it recorded in 2021 despite rising inflationary pressure, aggressive monetary tightening and a global energy crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Its managing director Datuk Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir said the company’s profit mostly came from monetisation activities and lower impairment in its portfolio.

“Despite the challenging market conditions globally, we delivered a satisfactory performance in the first full year of implementing our refreshed strategy,” he said.

Amirul Feisal said Khazanah’s debt increased marginally from RM48.5 billion in 2021 to RM49.1 billion last year.

“Our Realisable Asset Value over debt ratio remained healthy at 2.7 times, on track to achieve the long-term target of around 3.0 to 4.0 times. The Net Asset Value (NAV) saw a decline of 5 per cent from RM86 billion in 2021 to RM81 billion last year attributed to the global market downtrends,” he said.

Amirul Feisal said Khazanah is focused on building long-term financial return and continued its portfolio rebalancing towards the target SAA with deployments into public equities, private equities and real assets.

“RM6.6 billion was deployed in new investments and RM2.5 billion raised from monetisation of assets. A dividend of RM500 million for 2022 to the Government of Malaysia, with cumulative dividends declared since 2004 amounting to RM17.1 billion,” he said.

In anticipation of another economically challenging year, Amirul Feisal said Khazanah will continue to remain vigilant in its investing activities with the aim of maintaining portfolio resilience through diversification.

“Despite the uncertainties, Khazanah remains optimistic in identifying investment opportunities within emerging global trends such as structural changes to the multipolar global system and the growing challenges of climate change, energy transition and sustainability.

“Khazanah 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. Khazanah will also continue its quest to seed new growth areas and ecosystems via our Dana Impak initiative,” he said.

Dana Impak is a RM6 billion commitment over five years and is a key pillar under Khazanah’s Advancing Malaysia strategy, seeking to invest across six themes based on issues and challenges facing the nation.