PETALING JAYA: Faber Group Bhd, which is 70.7% owned by UEM Group Bhd, has finally sealed a new concession for the provision of support services to government hospitals in Perak, Penang, Kedah and Perlis.
Its associate companies, One Medicare Sdn Bhd and Sedafiat Sdn Bhd, have also secured a similar contract in Sabah and Sarawak.
Under the new deal, its 100%-owned Faber Medi-Serve Sdn Bhd (FMS) was awarded a 10-year contract to provide hospital support services (HSS), as well as to undertake the development of assets and services information system at government healthcare facilities in the covered regions.
Faber, however, did not provide any financial details in the announcement to Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
Analysts, including those at MIDF Research, had expected the company to secure the contract before the end of this month.
“In our view, the new concession agreement would be dilutive to Faber’s earnings, as ownership of the Sabah and Sarawak operations would be reduced to 40%,’’ MIDF Research said in a note dated March 10.
Faber said yesterday that with the new concession agreement, the previous interim agreement dated July 2, 2012 shall be terminated.
“None of the major shareholders and directors of the company and/or persons connected with them has any interest, direct or indirect, in the new concession agreement or the Sabah and Sarawak concessions,” it said in the filing.
Faber had previously announced that for the Sabah zone, the Government had agreed that the new concession would be implemented by a new consortium company, of which FMS would hold a 40% equity interest, and 60% by ICare Consortium Sdn Bhd.
For the Sarawak zone, the new concession would be also be implemented by a new consortium company, of which FMS will hold 40% equity interest and the remaining 60% by another consortium company through Metrocare Services Sdn Bhd and a joint venture between Simfoni Dua Sdn Bhd and the Sabah Economic Development Corp.
The company’s previous HSS agreement with the Government, which was for a tenure of 15 years, had expired in October 2011.
Following an interim HSS agreement, which expired in April 2012, the Government then issued a letter stating that Faber would continue to service the Government with the existing concession terms and conditions until a new agreement was signed.
Faber is one of the three government HSS concessionaires in the country and provides support to more than 70 government hospitals in Malaysia.
The other two are Pantai Medivest Sdn Bhd, which covers hospitals in the southern region of Peninsular Malaysia, and Radicare, which serves entities in the central and east-coast region of the peninsula.
Source: The Star