Yes, EPF has indeed seen its investment value in these 10 public-listed companies (PLCs) drop 12% or RM6.09 billion in a month.
While this sounds disconcerting, it is very important to note the scope of this loss.
EPF has RM814.38 billion worth of investment assets, so that means that this RM6.09 billion loss equates to 0.737% of the assets.
RM4.5 billion of this market cap loss came from 5 firms – Maybank, Axiata, CIMB, TM and TNB, all of whom are strong & profitable.
Investment value is revised and updated regularly to match market pricing.
However that said, these firms have seen these stock price points before, TNB back in October 2017, Axiata in February 2017, CIMB and Maybank in December 2017. However for Telekom it’s not the same case, they haven’t seen this stock price point since early 2011.
This is the nature of the stock market, or anything for that matter. The market corrects or reacts to significant events, and GE14 was a significant event and we’re still seeing the effects #PostGE14.
Before this, these firms didn’t have to worry much about politics, they benefitted from, let’s call it, political stability and certainty, for decades which is no longer the case.
Eventually the market will get used to pricing this in.
But anyway, I’m sure for most of these firms this just a market over-correction, it happens, and that they will be back in time, particularly the utilities and banks.
As for the others, particularly the construction ones, I’m not sure. Depends how much they depended on politics & cronyism to get their business, and now whether they can adapt.
Roshan ‘ARKAY’ Kanesan – June 20th 2018
In response to:
Ahmad Maslan’s tweet and #TheEdge’s ‘#EPF lost RM6 bil in investment value in 10 PLCs post-election’
arkaysthoughts 