17 Apr 2025
Media reports on 14/4/25 suggested that the Sarawak government had approached major shareholder Tan Sri Azman Hashim to express interest in buying his shares in AMMB Holdings Berhad. Azman is currently the second largest shareholder of the banking group with an effective stake of 11.8 percent, behind EPF’s stake of around 15%. An article in the NST suggests that Sarawak may attempt to engineer a merger between AMMB and Affin in which it holds a 31.3% stake, with Affin to lead the merged entity.

However Sarawak Premier Abang Johari dismissed the reports as mere speculation, saying that Sarawak had not sent any state government representative to discuss the matter with AmBank Group. Considering the wording of the Premier’s reply, this does not preclude the possibility of a private party trying to negotiate a deal for Sarawak although the likelihood of Tan Sri Azman Hashim selling out at the current share price level is extremely low. AMMB’s share price had reached a high of almost RM8.00 during 2013 during which its Net Profit was on an upward trajectory reaching RM2.0 billion just over a year later. Although earnings had since come off, AMMB’s prospects are currently very positive judging from the number of BUY calls with analysts expecting AMMB to scale new heights in terms of profitability and dividend payout. AMMB has a much better track record than Affin especially in terms of dividend payout and unlike Affin’s major shareholders previously, Tan Sri Azman Hashim is not under any financial pressure to sell. He has been instrumental to AMMB’s growth from its humble beginnings and for him to sell now would yield a very mediocre result for his life’s work and AMMB’s success and could only be because of personal reasons, or political pressure.

(Source: New Straits Times, TheEdge)