EPF to decide on buying insurer stakes

PETALING JAYA: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) will decide soon on the acquisition of stake or stakes of foreign insurers with Malaysian operations that are compelled by regulation to sell down their stakes.

Foreign insurers can hold at most 70% in their Malaysian operations and must meet the minimum local shareholding requirement of 30% by the end of June this year.

EPF chief executive officer Datuk Shahril Ridza Ridzuan told Bloomberg Television that the provident fund would have to decide soon on which of the one or two insurers that it would buy the stake or stakes from.

“Major foreign insurers have been knocking on the door of local institutional investors. The EPF is engaged with multiple foreign insurers which need to sell down stakes in local units to comply with shareholding rules,” he said.

Bloomberg said investors were relieved that Malaysia had called for a general election whose timing has been speculated on for about a year.

“Most EPF investments are in sectors that are not driven by political events and are cash-flow driven, including core infrastructure and some export activities,” Shahril said, adding that the provident fund was also shifting more money into sectors that were volatility-proof amid trade tensions globally.

State-run pension fund, Retirement Fund Inc, has also made known its interest to buy a stake in a foreign insurer.