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AFTER more than 15 years as RHB Bank Bhd chairman, Tan Sri Azlan Zainol will be retiring from the country’s fourth-largest lender by assets at the end of this month, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
Azlan, a former CEO of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), will join Malaysia Building Society Bhd as its new chairman, the sources say. MBSB had recently said in a stock exchange filing that it would announce a new chairman on March 1. Its previous chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Halim Ali, 77, retired on Feb 6.
Market speculation is that Datuk Mohamad Nasir Ab Latif will be the one to succeed Azlan as chairman of RHB Bank. Mohamad Nasir, former deputy CEO of the investment division at EPF, has been a non-independent non-executive director at RHB Bank since last March. He retired from EPF in December 2019 and is chairman of RHB Islamic Bank Bhd.
A SIGNIFICANT change is taking place in the Malaysian telecommunications landscape.
Last Friday, the government decided to take 5G off the backburner and bring it to the forefront. The rationale is that accelerating 5G will nudge the country quicker to its dream of becoming a high value-added economy and possibly a net exporter of homegrown technologies and digital solutions.
Hence, the government has taken the view that it needs to build the 5G infrastructure by itself to fuel the fourth industrial revolution and remain in the race against peers in technological advancement and attracting investments.
No doubt, the promise of 5G opens a new way for applications such as driverless cars, robotics, remote surgeries, virtual reality and the Internet of things, among others, that will change how people work, play and live.
Digital econ
PETALING JAYA: The government’s decision to fast-track 5G services in Malaysia by year-end, underscores the urgent shift towards digital technologies that has been accelerated by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Analysts said the move would help reap numerous benefits for the economy, especially for the local telecommunications sector.
“The 5G rollout, which will be deployed by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that is wholly-owned by the government, will reduce the investment burden on telecommunications companies or telcos, ” said an analyst.
“This means that the local telcos can breathe easy, yet still stay committed to the Jendela digital infrastructure plan, which aims to increase Malaysia’s 4G coverage from 91.6% to 96.9% by 2022.”
Maybank IB said its key buy calls are on these stocks – Dialog Group Bhd, Icon Offshore Bhd, Malaysia Maring and Heavy Engineering Holdings Bhd, Wah Seong Corp Bhd and Yinson Holdings Bhd.
PETALING JAYA: Analysts have become more optimistic on the crude oil price outlook, thus raising their price forecasts on the commodity.
Maybank Investment Bank Research (Maybank IB) in its report said it had raised its crude oil price assumption to US$55-US$60 per barrel for 2021 from US$45-US$50 per barrel before.
“Our revised estimates are generally in line with consensus (EIA & Fitch Solutions: US$53 per barrel). A more promising Covid-19 vaccine development/outlook and the effect of underinvestment kicking in could further elevate optimism in the oil market, ” Maybank IB said.