BERJAYA GROUP BERHAD - Berjaya Corporation Berhad

18
Chairman’s Statement
crisis had caused the Group to abort the
proposed restricted offer for sale of B-Toto in
December 1997 which would have required the
Company to pay a hefty RM1.2 billion for the
B-Toto shares.
In view of the downturn, the Group made
strategic decisions to divest its stakes in some
of the core businesses. Between February and
July 1998, the Group successfully placed out a
total of 88.7 million B-Toto shares for an
aggregate cash consideration of RM665.4
million. As a consequence, the Group’s interest
in B-Toto was reduced to 55.1%.
The sale of United Traders Securities Sdn Bhd
for a cash consideration of RM250 million was
completed during the year under review.
Convertible Unsecured Loan Stocks (“ICULS”)
with four warrants attached to each ICULS.
The ICULS would immediately raise
approximately RM607.8 million on issue and
the warrants, if fully exercised will have the
potential to raise a further RM2.43 billion over
the period of its tenure.
Proceeds from the earlier completed disposals
and proposed ICULS would mainly go towards
reducing the overall Group debt to a more
comfortable level.
YEAR 2000 DISCLOSURE
As reported to the KLSE on the Group’s Year
2000 compliance, the Board of Directors does
not expect the Year 2000 Millennium Bug to
cause any problems to the Group’s businesses
nor will it affect the Group’s future financial
condition or operational activities.
RANGE OF
PRODUCTS
FROM COSWAY
MALAYSIA.
To give the Millenium Bug due attention, a
task force has been formed and qualified staff
recruited to work on the Year 2000 compliance
activities in the Group. It has and will also
commit to a number of external projects to
reduce exposure to the Year 2000 problem.
In June 1998, the Group completed the
divestment of Prudential Assurance Malaysia
Berhad (formerly known as Berjaya Prudential
Assurance Berhad) for a cash consideration of
RM723 million.
Sale proceeds from these disposals which
totalled approximately RM1.64 billion had
resulted in the Group making exceptional gains
of approximately RM1.02 billion.
Another major and significant development
after the year end is the Company’s proposal
to issue RM607.8 million Irredeemable
As the Group is very diversified, not all its
computer systems are fully Year 2000
compliant as of end October 1998. All steps
are being taken to ensure all the computer
and operational systems in our subsidiaries,
related companies and interfaces with
external parties are Year 2000 compliant by 31
December 1998. We will, however, continue
to do Year 2000 compliance tolerance testing
until June 1999. The Group has also
established internal procedures to have Year
2000 clauses included in all new purchasing
contracts.
The cost to meet Year 2000 requirement for the
Group is estimated to be about RM11.2 million.
This expenditure is not expected to have a
significant impact on the Group’s results and
liquidity for the current year ending 30 April 1999.