Even if Arul is telling the truth, the Bandar Malaysia deal is a bail-out of 1 MDB by the Malaysian & Johor State Governments

by Ganesh Sahathevan

This does not change anything already said about this "done deal" but here is an issue that seems to have been ignored.

1 MDB CEO Arul Kanda said: 
1Malaysia Development Berhad has pointed out that Bandar Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. is a Malaysian project that is majority-owned by local interests, despite the 24 per cent stake sold to China Railway Engineering Corporation (M) Sdn. Bhd. (CREC).


According to 1MDB president/executive group director Arul Kanda Kandasamy, Malaysians still own 76 per cent of the project — 54 per cent by the federal and state and the rest by the private sector.
Arul Kanda made this clarification after the signing of an agreement to sell 60 per cent of the equity of Bandar Malaysia to a consortium comprising Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn. Bhd. (IWH) and CREC. The consortium known as IWH-CREC Sdn. Bhd. is a 60:40 joint-venture between the Malaysian company and the Chinese firm.
IWH is a public-private partnership between Credence Resource Sdn. Bhd. and the Johor-owned Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor Sdn. Bhd. while CREC is one of the world’s largest engineering and construction firms.

What Arul did not do was to elaborate  who exactly IWH's shareholders are.As IWH says on its website:

Iskandar Waterfront Holdings (IWH) is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) involving Credence Resources Sdn Bhd (Private equity) and Kumpulan Prasarana Rakyat Johor Sdn Bhd (KPRJ) (State equity). The Federal Government is also a strategic partner in IWH through its subsidiary – Iskandar Waterfront Sdn Bhd – in which Khazanah Nasional Berhad (KZN) and Employees Provident Fund (EPF) are also shareholders through Iskandar Investment Berhad.

Given the above, the obvious conclusion to this claim republished below  by Arul Kanda must be that Government funds have been used ,or will be used to purchase Bandar Malaysia and therefore bail-out 1 MDB:

“We had a plan to conduct a strategic review, to conduct a rationalisation plan.
“Alhamdulillah, we’ve achieved what we said we would achieve by way of executing legally binding agreements for the debt swap, the Edra sale and also Bandar Malaysia,” he said.

As  for the other parties, the Chinese as reported cannot even agree with IWH on price, and Credence Resource's Lim Kian Hoo is already talking about deferred payment. 

END

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