Fund quashes Bank Rakyat rumour

KUALA LUMPUR: Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) group chairman Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar has dismissed rumours that the nation’s largest fund management company planned to acquire Bank Rakyat.

“We are not aware of it. Actually we are not even looking into it. I am not sure where the rumours came from,” he said during its quarterly performance review, here, yesterday.

On March 13, an English daily reported the possibility of Bank Rakyat takeover as part of its expansion and reform plan.

PNB has three financial institutions under its wing, namely MIDF Group; which is its investment banking and asset management arm, a controlling stake in Malayan Banking Bhd and MNRB Holdings Bhd; which is Malaysia’s only national insurer.

Bank Rakyat is the biggest local Islamic cooperative bank with assets totalling RM99.3 billion as at September last year and is the second largest Islamic financial institution after Maybank Islamic Bank. Zarina Zakariah