KUALA LUMPUR: Prolintas Infra Business Trust (Prolintas Infra BT), the country’s first listing of a business trust, hopes to attract investor interest with its dividend payout from money generated by its highway assets.
Projek Lintasan Kota Holdings Sdn Bhd (Prolintas) group chief executive officer, Datuk Mohammad Azlan Abdullah, said the company, which has a portfolio of six highways, has aggregated four of them into a business trust set up under Prolintas Infra BT.
The highways are the Ampang-Kuala Lumpur Elevated Highway (Akleh), Guthrie Corridor Expressway (GCE), Kemuning-Shah Alam Highway (LKSA) and Kajang Dispersal Link Expressway (Silk), Damansara–Shah Alam Elevated Expressway (Dash) and Sungai Besi-Ulu Kelang Elevated Expressway (Suke),
“Four of the highways other than Dash and Suke have been in operation for more than 15 years, and have shown evidence of traffic growth and a steady cash flow which is why we decided to do this,” he said at the launch of its prospectus yesterday in line with its initial public offering (IPO) exercise.
The trust aims to list on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia on March 25, 2024. The listing exercise will involve the offer for sale of 468.6 million units at 95 sen per share by Prolintas and raise RM445.3mil.
A total of 137.5 million units will be reserved for bumiputra investors, while the remaining 45.75 million units, including the retail portion of 27.50 million units, are for the public via balloting.
Prolintas is owned by Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB). Mohammad Azlan said upon the completion of the IPO, PNB will deem to hold 51% of Prolintas Infra BT.
“We will aim to pay out a total dividend of RM70mil for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2024 (FY24). Based on the offer price of 95 sen per share, the implied dividend yield is about 6.63% for FY24,” he noted.
As for Dash and Suke to be injected into the trust, he said there is first right of refusal for Prolintas Infra BT as naturally both will be considered in the future.
“As of now, we have not set a timeline because both highways are fairly new, but like any other strategic business, we will keep our options open as well as look at other potential highways,” he said.
Meanwhile, on the matter of toll hikes, Mohammad Azlan said there will be two more hikes for the remaining years in the portfolio for GCE, LKSA and Silk, but not Akleh.
He said there will be hikes every 10 years, which means the next one will be in 2033, subject to reviews.
“Should the toll increases not be approved by the government, then there will be a compensation clause,” he said.