Silterra declines comment
KUALA LUMPUR: Wafer foundry provider Silterra Malaysia Sdn Bhd has declined to comment on potential strategic investors coming into the group to boost the company’s finances and business operations.
The group, which is 98% owned by Khazanah Nasional Bhd, had incurred losses until three years ago after current chief executive officer Dr Kamarulzaman Mohamed Zin took helm of Silterra.
“It is a shareholders’ matter and I’m not going to say much more,” he told reporters at a press conference yesterday after a smart partnership with Malaysian Institute Of Microelectronic Systems Bhd (Mimos) to produce Power Management Integrated Circuit (Powermos) wafers for its global market. Kamarulzaman also declined to reveal the current debt level of Silterra but said the company had been in the black for three years.
Previous news report had stated that Khazanah was in talks with potential strategic investors to help prop up Silterra.
On the business side, Kamarulzaman said the group foresaw growth of between 7% and 10% this year for its business, in line with the industry’s growth rate estimation. “The tie-up of MIMOS Bhd today will help to grow our business,” he said, adding that the production of Powermos at MIMOS’ state-of-the-art wafer fab facility would enable Silterra to increase its production capacity to serve the growing global market and reduce its production dependency on foreign countries such as Japan and China.
The collaboration fulfilled one of the objectives articulated in the Economic Trasnformation Programme, that is to promote shared services among industries.