UMW Holdings Bhd president and group chief executive officerDatuk Syed Hisham Syed Wazir said the decision on whether to take its 22.3%associate WSP Holdings Ltd private could be known by as early as this month. Torecap, in December last year, private equity H.D.S. Investments LLC (HDS) had proposedto acquire WSP at US$0.60 (RM1.80) per share with the intention of taking itprivate. HDS has created a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and is offering cashto WSP's minorities. Syed Hisham said WSP had then formed a special committeeto deliberate on the offer.

WSP's major shareholder Expert Master Holdings Ltd - whollyowned by WSP's chairman and chief executive officer - with whom HDS has been intalks, will in turn be issued with shares in the SPV in exchange for its 50.9%stake.

WSP is being affected by anti-dumping and countervailingduties imposed by the United States on oil country tubular goods (OCTG)produced in China. This has forced UMW to make a provision for impairmentlosses, which was among the factors that led to the group's oil and gasdivision to suffer a RM191.0mil pre-tax loss in the financial year endedDecember 31, 2011.' Business Times

Glomac Bhd, which recently acquired two parcels of land inKlang for RM44.0mil, is still on the lookout for good land banks in the GreaterKuala Lumpur area. Glomac senior manager for group corporate communications,Fara Eliza FD Mansor, said the company is always scouting for good areas as itsfocus is very much on the Greater Kuala Lumpur area. She added that the companyrecently announced the acquisition of two parcels of leasehold land totalling80ha, adjacent to Bandar Saujana Utama. The new land will allow Glomac tocapitalise on the success of its flagship township and raise the company'stotal estimated gross development value (GDV) of current and future projects toRM6.0bil. Currently, Glomac has a total of 11 ongoing projects, comprising arange of mixeddevelopments in Greater KL and in Johor Baru. She added that theyare looking into expanding into Iskandar but it is yet undecided. ' BusinessTimes

Positive consumer sentiment, strong purchasing power andminimal impact from Bank Negara's newly implemented responsible lendingguidelines collectively helped boost sales of premium vehicles in February. MalaysianAutomotive Association (MAA) president Datuk Aishah Ahmad pointed out that BankNegara's new lending guidelines, which came into effect on Jan 1, had little tono impact on buyers of premium vehicles. Under the central bank's new lendingguidelines, loans are now approved based on net income compared with grossincome previously, in addition to which is the need for more documentation.Aishah said the impact was more profound on the lower capacity passenger carsegment. - StarBiz

Source: AmeSecurities