Ancom hits the reset button

FIVE-decade-old Ancom Bhd recently piqued the interest of investors because of its restructuring plans, even though the group has been working on the corporate exercise for more than two years now.

Ancom executive chairman and substantial shareholder Datuk Siew Ka Wei tells The Edge that the opportunity to inject Ancom Logistics Bhd’s (ALB) business into Nylex (M) Bhd only came about recently. “We want to use this time to reset the whole group. It gives us a chance to reset,” he says in an exclusive interview.

Ancom owns 45.06% of ALB and 48.95% of Nylex. All three companies are listed on Bursa Malaysia.

The group’s logistics business under ALB and Nylex had not been performing as separate entities, causing Siew and his team to look at merging the two businesses to improve efficiencies and potentially beef up earnings.

While they had an overall strategy, the path to executing the plan has not been smooth. Several restructuring pitches have been turned down by the regulators over the past two years.

Finally, over a month ago, an opportunity arose via S5 Holdings Inc — believed to be a company to watch out for in the immigration technology space — which had sought a backdoor listing via ALB as Ancom undertook the restructuring exercise to inject ALB’s business into Nylex.

Siew hopes the restructuring will turn Nylex around within 12 months as it will complete the logistics supply chain and improve efficiencies. “If we take the logistics asset out of ALB, it will become a PN17 company. So, we were deliberating on what asset to put into the listed company,” he says.