RHB Sakura Targets Southern Region Market

New Desk Office in JB to Tap Business Potential offered by Investors

JOHOR BAHRU, Sept 26, 2005: RHB Sakura Merchant Bankers Bhd (“RHB Sakura”) opened its Desk Office here today, a move that will enable the investment bank to promote its services to the booming southern region of Malaysia.

RHB Sakura, which had made some inroads into the region previously, hopes to tap the potential for new business from about 200 companies that are based in the region.

“We see the region as a high-growth area, and we expect more companies to begin seeking investment banking services as they mature in the years ahead,” RHB Sakura Chairman Dato Abdullah Mat Noh said.

This is RHB Sakura’s third desk office in Malaysia. On Aug 15, the investment bank opened its first desk office in Kuching, Sarawak to target the market for investment banking services in Sabah and Sarawak.

On Sept 7, it opened its second desk office, in Penang, to bring its services to an estimated 200 companies in the northern region of Malaysia.

Just like the desk offices in Kuching and Penang, the Johor Bahru Desk Office will serve as a liaison between RHB Sakura and its existing as well as potential clients. It will take calls from clients and potential clients, respond to their enquiries, and to meet regularly with company officials in an effort to not only maintain ties but also to enhance the investment bank’s relationship with market players.

The Chief Operating Officer of RHB Sakura, Puan Jamelah Jamaluddin, said the southern region was especially attractive to the investment bank given its vast potential for growth.

“Various infrastructures such as the Port of Tanjung Pelepas, the Senai Airport, the industrial zones, as well as its close proximity to Singapore, and the fact that it is part of the growth triangle that also includes the Indonesian island of Bintan – all these factors have made the region very attractive to investors,” she said.

“As the level of investments grow, the need for investment banking services will increase as companies see the need to raise funds to expand their operations or start up new ones,” she added.

RHB Sakura hosted a luncheon for existing and potential clients at the Mutiara Hotel here today to mark the opening of its new desk office as well as to introduce its representative, Encik Azman Alias, to the business community in Johor Bahru.

Apart from Dato Abdullah and Puan Jamelah, others at the luncheon were representatives from RHB Bank’s Regional Commercial Banking and Regional Corporate Banking in Johor as well as representatives from other companies within the RHB Group.

The Johor Bahru Desk Office will promote the entire suite of investment banking products and services that RHB Sakura is renowned for but previously available only from its head office in Kuala Lumpur.

The suite of products include equity related services, advisory services for initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, issuance of equity products, project financing and capital restructuring.

Other services that are also available from RHB Sakura, and will be promoted by its Johor Bahru Desk Office, are fund raising via private debt securities (conventional), Islamic securities and corporate lending.

RHB Sakura, one of the most renowned investment banks in Malaysia, has been involved in several significant deals this year. In April, it teamed up with three other investment banks to arrange an Islamic financing facility for RM6.1 billion for a Jimah Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd power project in Negri Sembilan.

In May, it arranged to raise RM100 million in an Islamic financing facility for Pharmaniaga Bhd to part-finance the construction of a new products facility and for working capital.

Then in July, it arranged a Sukuk to raise RM209 million for Institut Jantung Negara Sdn Bhd to finance its plans to expand the National Heart Institute to meet increasing demand for its services.

Apart from RHB Sakura’s efforts to bring its services closer to investors based outside the Klang Valley, the other units of the RHB Group have also been actively expanding their range of products and services.

In March, RHB Islamic Bank Bhd opened its doors to customers, making it the first Islamic banking window of a commercial bank to mature into a full-fledged Islamic bank. The move has enabled the RHB Group to offer an even wider range of Islamic banking products it could not otherwise offer as a windows operation.

In June, RHB Securities Sdn Bhd and Dow Jones Indexes jointly launched the Dow Jones RHB Islamic Malaysia Index, a new index to track Syariah compliant stocks on Bursa Malaysia.

In the same month, RHB Securities entered into an agreement with Phillip Securities Pte Ltd of Singapore to offer its clients the facility of a multi-exchange trading platform.

There was good news for shareholders too. RHB Capital Bhd reported a 12% increase in pre-tax profit to RM355 million for the six months ended June 30, 2005. Net profit for the period rose 7% year-on-year to RM165.1 million.

RHB Sakura was incorporated as D&C Nomura Merchant Bankers Bhd on Aug 5, 1974 as a joint venture among several domestic and international financial institutions. It assumed its present name on June 16, 1997 following a restructuring exercise involving RHB Capital, Rashid Hussain Bhd (“RHB”) and Kwong Yik Bank Bhd.

RHB Sakura, which is now wholly-owned by RHB Capital Bhd, has several subsidiaries, including RHB Securities Sdn Bhd, RHB Asset Management Sdn Bhd, RHB Unit Trust Management Bhd, RHB Futures Sdn Bhd and RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd.

RHB Sakura has received several accolades over the years from domestic as well as international media groups covering the financial services industry. It has won the Best Domestic Investment Bank, Malaysia’s Domestic Bond House of the Year and Malaysia’s Loan House of the Year awards from FinanceAsia.

Among the other awards that RHB Sakura and its subsidiaries have won are Best Domestic Securities House in Malaysia from Euromoney and Best Domestic Brokerage House in the Region from FinanceAsia.