Integrax moves on
Worst of shareholder feud is over
KUALA LUMPUR: Shareholder disagreements should be a thing of the past for Integrax Bhd after the integrated industrial Lumut port operator saw a reshuffling of director appointments last week, said newly appointed deputy chairman Amin Halim Rasip.
“The recent appointments signal the company shareholders’ readiness to move away from the issues of the past,” Amin told Starbiz in an interview.
He said the previous disagreements stemmed from the differing visions of integrax’s diverse shareholders and he expected these issues to be naturally resolved with the resignation of Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) chief executive officer Datuk Seri Che Khalib Mohd Noh effective June 2012.
Amin had a different vision for Integrax and these disagreements were dragged on even after his elder brother Harun Halim Rasip sold his 22.12% stake to TNB. Amin has 17.12% in Integrax through Golden Initiative Sdn Bhd and Jurukapal Marine Services Sdn Bhd.
It is learnt that these issues were also mired with personality clashes in the way and direction Integrax should take in the bigger picture. The personality disagreements, which involved Amin and his brother Harun, carried on after TNB bought over Harun’s stakes in Integrax which saw some disagreements between Amin and Che Khalib.
To this, Amin said Integrax should be able to move foward from here on and that its board of directors hoped to also be able to work well with the next CEO of TNB for the overall betterment of Integrax.
“Sometimes, we have to take two steps backward to move 10 steps forward. In the bigger picture, TNB, being a substantial shareholder of this company, will also be able to gain when we utilise the capital that the company has to take advantage of the opportunities around us,” he said.
Integrax loads and unloads coal used to fire up TNB’S power plants in Lumut, Perak.
Integrax currently handles six million tonnes of coal per year for TNB to power up a 2,000MW power plant. It expects to handle an additional three million tonnes of coal per year in 2014 for TNB’S new 1,000MW power plant in Manjung.
“Our utilisation rate presently and in the coming two years will be nine million tonnes per year. But Integrax has the capacity to handle another four million tonnes of any commodity raw material. There is definitely further room for expansion in this respect,” Amin said.
He said that Integrax aimed to eventually secure an agreement with Vale to help the Brazilian ore mining company to process some of its products before exporting it out again to its biggest country customer, China.
Integrax also wants to process and value add other commodities such as palm oil.
The present leadership aims to transform Integrax into the Rotterdam of Malaysia. Often called the “Gateway to Europe”, Rotterdam in the Netherlands is the largest port in Europe and one of the biggest and busiest ports in the world.
“There is an obvious opportunity in front of us and we should seize it. The people of Perak should understand that there is a huge economic multiplier effect to this. They definitely don’t want to end up 10 years from now seeing Vale’s side of the port being nicely developed while over on the Malaysian side (Integrax), it is less utilised,” Amin said.
“Let us not just sign an empty cheque for the MNCS (multinational corporations) to use our land and profit without benefiting any local players and create jobs.
“I expect an economic multiplier effect of as much as Rm100bil in a 10-year span for the Lumut Maritime Terminal Masterplan,” he added.