KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach Newswire – 8 January 2025 – Gateway Development Alliance Sdn Bhd (“GDA“) and its shareholders (collectively, the “Consortium“) announced that as at 5:00 p.m. today, it has received valid offer acceptances of 1,385.5 million shares and a further 18.2 million shares have accepted the offer pending verification, together representing 84.1% of the total number of issued shares in Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (“MAHB“).

The encouraging level of acceptances by the First Closing Date, despite the intervening holiday period, moves the Consortium decisively towards satisfying the 90% acceptance condition and thus the threshold required to de-list MAHB pursuant to the Offer.

For shareholders who have yet to submit their acceptances, the Consortium wishes to highlight that the offer period has been extended from 8 January 2025 to 17 January 2025. Save for the extension, all other terms including the offer price of RM11.00 and the 90% acceptance condition remain unchanged.

RM11.00 offer price higher than any price MAHB has traded

GDA remains firm that its offer price of RM11.00 per share is highly compelling and attractive to shareholders (see Chart #1¹). RM11.00 is higher than any price MAHB has ever traded at and represents a 49.5% premium YTD² and implies a Price-to-Earnings ratio of 37.7x³.

All 14 licensed equity research analysts that currently cover MAHB⁴ have target prices that are either lower than or equal to RM11.00, and most also explicitly recommend that shareholders accept the offer.

MAHB needs to address shortcomings to compete regionally

The Consortium reiterates its view that MAHB’s shortcomings in maintaining its core assets and systems, and prolonged history of underperformance both operationally and financially, will only be properly addressed if it is not constrained by a public market listing and is able to take a fresh approach.

A case in point is the Aerotrain at KLIA Terminal 1 which has suffered multiple service failures over the last 10 years and continues to be challenged by ongoing and unresolved issues. As it nears the second anniversary of total service suspension, the re-opening date remains uncertain.

The Consortium believes one of the root causes of MAHB’s issues is its continuous underinvestment in critical operational infrastructure and in projects to drive growth and expansion.

Over the last 5 years, MAHB spent RM1.3bn in capex compared to RM18.9bn by Singapore’s Changi, RM8.1bn by Indonesia’s Angkasa Pura and RM6.8bn by Airports of Thailand (“AOT”)⁵ (see Chart #2).

This prolonged underinvestment by MAHB has resulted in an ageing asset base and led to a number of high-profile operational failures. Meanwhile, the passenger experience has deteriorated markedly, as noted by Skytrax whose ranking of KLIA has plummeted from 2^nd best airport in the world in 2001 to 71^st in 2024. MAHB’s airports are in urgent need of significant remediation and expansion capex.

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