Khazanah still eyeing strategic partner for Malaysia Airlines — Azmin Ali

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 21): Khazanah Nasional Bhd is still looking for a strategic partner for ailing national carrier Malaysia Airlines.

Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said Khazanah is still looking at offers from several interested companies, and this has been brought up at a board of directors meeting.

"But we still feel there is a need to look at other views and offers as the existing offers are not so interesting and should be studied first.

"Several international companies have expressed interest to help, as our intention is not to sell the national carrier but to find a strategic partner to improve its position today," he said.

He was speaking to reporters after witnessing a ceremony to recognise Ramly Food Industries Sdn Bhd as Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Bhd's first recipient of the Industry Digitalisation Transformation Fund here today.

"I don't want to give a timeline but the prime minister had received a visit from an international company and I was asked to follow up on the discussion as soon as possible,” he said.

In October last year, Mohamed Azmin said Khazanah had received several proposals from airline as well as non-airline companies to be strategic partners for Malaysia Airlines.

Asked about a potential conclusion to the exercise, he said: "I'm hoping we will be able to conclude the whole exercise as soon as possible as we want Malaysia Airlines to be on the growth path to reduce Khazanah’s financial burden."

On the revival of negotiations between Khazanah and Telenor ASA, Mohamed Azmin said the sovereign fund would look at the deal if the offer was "good".

"It was initiated last year but it was suspended due to some reason. So far, there has been no further development," he said.

Mohamed Azmin was commenting on a news report stating that Khazanah and Telenor had revived talks on a potential deal involving Axiata Group Bhd.