ID :
382608
Tue, 10/06/2015 - 07:07
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PM Najib Explains 1MDB To US Business Leaders, Says Minister Salleh

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 (Bernama) -- The allegation that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak refused to address or explain the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) issues to US business leaders is not true. Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Minister, Dr Salleh Said Keruak, said Najib had met them during his recent trip to the US. At the meetings, Najib took questions from them (business leaders) regarding 1MDB, he said. "During a business luncheon a day earlier, Najib touched on the weakness of the 1MDB business model which he described as too idealistic. "Najib explained that only US$228.98 million (RM1 billion) had been invested to undertake a huge property development and US$4.12 billion (RM18 billion) for the acquisition of power-generation plants, resulting in the company having to go heavily into debt financing," Salleh said in his blog posting, sskeruak.blogspot.my, here Monday. Najib then told the audience he was confident that by year-end, the company would be able to go through the process of rationalisation with a massive reduction of debt, Salleh said. Salleh said Najib also informed the business leaders that there would be an announcement in the coming days regarding a significant reduction of 1MDB's debts to the tune of US$3.66 billion (RM16 billion). Needless to say, none of this was carried by the local news portals, which seemed to want to avoid talking about any good news involving 1MDB, he said. --BERNAMA

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