Malaysia state fund 1MDB plans to pay $1.5b debt soon

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian state investment company at the center of multiple financial probes said it will repay 6 billion ringgit ($1.5 billion) in coming weeks as asset sales give it room to pare down debt.

1Malaysia Development Bhd. won't have any more short-term debt and bank loans after the repayments, President Arul Kanda said in an interview on Wednesday at the fund's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. It will have a cash surplus of at least 2.3 billion ringgit after settling the debt, he said. "All the short-term debt, all the bank debt will be repaid" within the next three weeks, said Kanda, a trained lawyer who has led the fund since January 2015. 1MDB announced last week it had settled a 700 million ringgit syndicated term loan.

1MDB's 4.4 percent 2023 notes climbed 3.4 cents to 92.79 cents on the dollar, a level last seen in April 2015, according to Bloomberg-compiled prices. Investors would have gained 30 percent if they bought the securities at their lowest point of 71.6 cents on Oct. 2. The bonds were sold at par of 100 cents in March 2013 in a deal arranged by Goldman Sachs

Group Inc. and rated at A- or four levels above junk by Standard & Poor's. The state-owned company, whose advisory board is headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak, has been the subject of overlapping investigations in Malaysia and countries including Singapore and Switzerland amid allegations of financial irregularities. Having almost defaulted on a loan, it announced last year it will transfer much of its business to standalone entities. 1MDB has consistently denied wrongdoing. Set up by the government in 2009 to build infrastructure with borrowed money, 1MDB started facing cash flow problems in 2014 after a planned initial public offering of energy unit Edra Global Energy faced delays amid an unfavorable market. 1MDB owed 42 billion ringgit as of March 2014.