MAHB Eyes Opportunities In China, Indonesia

ISTANBUL, Jan 26 (Bernama) -- Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd is eyeing opportunities to manage and operate airports in Indonesia and China. Managing director Bashir Ahmad said MAHB was now looking at two airports, one each in China and Indonesia. “We are now in discussions with a few parties which include local firms in these countries. We hope to finalise talks with these parties by the end of this year,” he told Malaysian journalists here. MAHB is the operator and manager of 39 airports in Malaysia and four airports overseas. MAHB's investments overseas are in Delhi International Airport Pte Ltd and Hyderabad International Airport Pte Ltd in India, GMR Male International Airport Pte Ltd in Maldives and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen in Turkey. Bashir also expects MAHB to record a better performance for its financial year ended Dec 31, 2011 compared to the previous year. MAHB turned in a net profit of RM293.9 million on revenue of RM1.81 billion for its financial year 2010. (US$1=RM3.05) Bashir also foresees performance for the current financial year to be better than 2011 with revenue exceeding RM2 billion. “Revenue for 2012 will surpass RM2 billion. Profit would also be better (year-on-year),” he said. MAHB posted a net profit of RM278.2 million on revenue of RM1.917 billion for its nine months ended September 2011. According to Bashir, the better numbers for 2012 are in line with his projection of 6 to 7 per cent growth in the total number of passengers for 2012. MAHB ’s total number of passengers for 2011 was 64 million, an increase of more than 10 per cent from 58 million recorded in 2010. -- BERNAMA