PR1MA RAISES RM5B VIA BANKS
Agreement inked with 4 financial institutions
AZURA ABAS PUTRAJAYA news@nst.com.my
PERBADANAN PR1MA Malaysia will raise capital through a sustainable system to build affordable homes for the people. Its chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Mutalib Alias said this followed the signing of an agreement with four banks yesterday to raise RM5 billion.
“The agreement demonstrates the trust and support we get from the financial institutions (to raise) the RM5 billion,” he said after the signing.
The ceremony was witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
PR1MA is an acronym for 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme.
Maybank Investment Bank Bhd is the coordinating bank, facility agent as well as one of the joint lead arrangers/joint lead managers for the proposed exercise to raise funds.
Others are Amlnvestment Bank Bhd, CIMB Investment Bank Bhd and RHB Investment Bank Bhd.
Mutalib said the fund would be raised via a combination of sukuk programme and syndicated revolving credit facility to provide medium-term liquidity for PR1MA’s projects.
He said this would be used to develop 89 of PR1MA’s projects involving 89,449 homes nationwide, with an estimated gross development value of more than RM23 billion.
He said to be successful, it was crucial for PR1MA to find new sources of funding, apart from the government grants.
He said the grants to date amounted to RM3.9 billion, which had been disbursed since 2013.
He said PR1MA’s projects were on schedule and almost halfway through the target of completing 17,000 units by the end of this year.
He said PR1MA had, to date, approved the development of 267,902 homes, including 139,393 units in various stages of construction nationwide.
He said 9,791 units of PR1MA homes had been sold with an estimated sales value of RM2.36 billion.
“More than 1.42 million people have registered for PR1MA homes, of which 166,972 have applied to buy PR1MA homes nationwide.”
Mutalib said before PR1MA was set up, there were very few private developers involved in the affordable housing market.
“But, we noticed lately that private developers have begun to offer homes to a similar target market, especially after we started to market our products.
“We welcome this trend as it gives the people more options.”