SCB appoints British nationals as directors

KUCHING: Sarawak Cable Bhd (SCB) has appointed two British nationals to its board of directors.

Mazhar UL Latif, 69, was appointed executive director, and Rafat Ali Rizvi, 63, as non-independent director on Dec 29, 2023.

According to SCB, Mazhar is a chartered accountant and was an audit senior at Cooper Baseen & Adamson, London in 1975.

He then joined Saba Abdulkhair & Co, Saudi Arabia as audit manager in 1983 before he moved from being the chief financial officer (CFO) of Saudi American Bank, Saudi Arabia to mergers and acquisitions transactor at Citigroup, London.

From there, he moved again and joined Bank T&D Consultant Ltd as a consultant. Mazhar also served as an investment consultant at Gestio Capital Ltd, CFO at Ion Care Pte Ltd before joining IIa Technologies Pte Ltd as a director since September 2022.

SCB said Rafat graduated from University of Essex with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry (Honours) and has spent most of his professional career in investment banking. 

In 1993, he joined the US investment bank, Kidder Peabody, which subsequently merged with PaineWebber Inc and is now owned by UBS.

“During the Asian financial crisis between 1997 and 1999, he led a team in sourcing, restructuring and trading of distressed assets in the financial sector.

“Beginning in the late 1990s, he invested significantly and strategically in the South Asian financial services sector as well as being a substantial early investor in the Indonesian banking sector,” SCB said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.

Rafat, said SCB, has been involved in several landmark transactions in Asia and more recently, has focused on the acquisition of significantly undervalued assets in Europe.

He was responsible for placing the majority of the debt and equity that was required to purchase the assets of Glasgow Rangers Football Club out of administration in June 2012.

On Dec 12, 2023, SCB, a PN17 company, announced that Serendib Capital Limited has emerged as a white knight for the company.

Serendib Capital has submitted its interest in performing a resuscitation exercise for the financially-troubled power cable manufacturer.

According to SCB, Serendib Capital is an experienced UK-based investor with over two decades of experience in advisory and financial asset restructuring in South Asia.

Their track record encompasses several high-profile regional deals, the most notable of which was the restructuring and rescue of Lanka Bangla Finance. 

“This will be Serendib Capital’s first significant Malaysian deal and they have prepared a RM250 million war chest to be used to restructure and pay down outstanding creditors as well as for an injection of capital into the company to cater to the growing customer demand for infrastructure grid development and high voltage cables.

“Serendib Capital sees the growing emphasis on national development of Malaysia’s electrical infrastructure as an attractive proposition for SCB, increased electrification of transport, Asean grid connectivity and the mushrooming of power hungry data centres and the demand for electric vehicles are all key drivers for growth in the near future,” added SCB.

SCB said its board of directors had accepted the broad terms proposed by Serendib Capital subject to the company’s best interests.

However, no formal agreement on the offer has been signed yet.  

In a subsequent filing with Bursa Malaysia, SCB said Serendib Capital’s offer is via a mix of debt repayment and working capital injection.

“The pertinent terms of the offer is that Serendib Capital would assist SCB in the formulation of a comprehensive rescue plan and subsequent negotiations with SCB group’s creditors and at the same time Serendib Capital will provide the funding requirement once finalised.

“Serendib Capital’s offer mandates a board representation and as such Mr Takeo Hirata has been appointed to the board of SCB for that very purpose as stated herein.”

On Dec 18, SCB said Serendib Capital’s rescue plan will be to first formulate and negotiate a debt restructuring scheme with SCB group’s creditors, and that meetings between Hirata (representing the white knight) and management of SCB are scheduled over the next two weeks.

Thereafter, the white knight and SCB will jointly approach SCB group’s creditors to agree on a debt restructuring scheme.

“Before such creditors’ acquiesce is granted, no binding financial commitments can be made between the white knight and SCB,” added SCB.

SCB group chief executive officer Russel Walter Boyd has said the company sees the partnership with Serendib Capital as an extremely positive development in the path to restructuring the financial commitments at SCB.

He added: We look forwards to leveraging the financial firepower and turnaround expertise of Serendib Capital so that we can focus on aggressively delivering on our RM900 million order book.”

Also a British, Boyd, 39, was appointed as SCB group CEO in April 2023. He obtained his degree in accounting and finance from London School of Economics. 

On announcement of the white knight, SCB share price staged a relief rally to hit 48sen on Dec 28 from 6sen on Dec 12 on huge daily volume. 

On the last trading day for 2023 on Dec 29,SCB finished 37.5sen with a market capitalisation of RM149.6 million.  

SCB share price plunged to low of 3.5sen in 2023 from the peak of RM1.75 in January 2016.  

As at Sept 19, 2023, SCB’s largest shareholder is Datuk Sri Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib (14.6 per cent), followed by Sarawak Energy Bhd (13.13 per cent), Hng Capital Sdn Bhd (7.86 per cent) and Central Paragon Sdn Bhd (6.54 per cent).