By Selangor Journal Staff
KUALA LUMPUR: Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah) today confirmed that all of its Board of Director members have tendered their resignation.
Khazanah in a statement said that the resignation of the nine Board members, including Managing Director Azman Mokhtar was done to ‘facilitate a smooth and orderly transition under the new government’.
“The current board have been honoured to serve, and feels it is appropriate to offer the new Government the discretion and reaffirm the prerogative to form the new board.
“We will issue a further statement once we have further details of the reconstitution of the Board,” the statement reads.
Recently, news reports have surfaced o issues surrounding the scandal ridden state investment arm including the resignation of its Board Members, possibility of scaling down and potentially selling their assets.
In July, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said that Khazanah has strayed from its intended role of holding shares allocated for the Bumiputera.
Khazanah was set up during Mahathir’s first tenure as premier during the 1990s.
Reuters previously reported that Khazanah had paid the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government a huge sum of money to help pay off 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) liabilities.
In mid-2017, Khazanah reportedly gave the government RM1.2 billion to help pay for 1MDB’s dues to Abu Dhabi fund IPIC. In exchange for the money, Khazanah was provided with redeemable shares owned by the Ministry of Finance.
During this time, the post of Finance Minister was also helmed by then Prime Minister, Najib Razak.
In response to the matter information, Khazanah told the news source that the MOF had exercised its right in August 2017 to redeem outstanding Redeemable Convertible Cumulative Preference Shares amounting to RM1.2 billion which were issued to the ministry in 2011.
However, Khazanah failed to give any comments on claims of the funds were used to bail 1MDB.
