Sunday 12 November 2017

Sime Darby: what happened after its merger? (2)

Long article in The Star: Sizing up Sime Darby’s demerger

But what is missing?

First of all one simple number, how much will this demerger actually cost? Surely this number should have been disclosed in a transparent manner.

The previous exercise in which Sime Darby was merged with Golden Hope and Kumpulan Guthrie was rumoured to have cost RM 500 Million, that is a lot of money. Most likely this demerger will cost a similar amount of money. This cost is certain to happen, possible benefits are just projections, there is a large difference between a certain cost and possible future benefits.

Secondly, were the expectations of that previous merger met? According to this link:


Were those annual benefits of RM 400 - 475 Million ever realized? I strongly doubt it, Sime Darby's results have been disappointing since the merger. But would it not be better to analyze first what went wrong the last decade, and communicate these findings in a transparent way to the shareholders?

Thirdly, if this demerger really makes so much sense, why was it not done ten years earlier, when the merger took place? It could have saved hundreds of millions of fees and costs with the company having the possible benefits over the last decade.

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