KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 — Pelaburan Hartanah Bhd (PHB), a subsidiary of Yayasan Amanah Hartanah Bumiputera (YAHB) and Maybank Asset Management Sdn Bhd (MAM) have announced an interim income distribution of Amanah Hartanah Bumiputera (AHB) at 2.35 sen a unit for the six-month period ended March 31, 2021, for the first 500,000 units held by unit holders.

This consists of a basic income distribution of 2.15 sen a unit and a bonus distribution of 0.20 sen a unit, they said in a joint statement today.

It said the interim income distribution of AHB is tax-exempt and payable net of zakat, which will be credited directly into the unit holder’s bank account on April 15, 2021.

PHB managing director Datuk Mahmud Fauzi Muda said the market continued to be challenging for the past one year due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, PHB allocated a substantial sum for ‘Rent Relief Programme’ (RRP) to provide assistance to its affected tenants, last year. 

"PHB has provided an additional allocation for RRP in 2021. Due to limited resources, rental relief assistance had to be provided selectively to the worst affected tenants. Despite the economic disruptions, we have so far managed to replace most of the tenants lost with new tenants”, he said.

On March 15, 2021, PHB and MAM re-offered 160 million AHB units for subscription to Bumiputera, where the units were accumulated as a result of normal redemptions made by unitholders over the past one year since March 2020.

"PHB is actively looking to acquire selected new assets, particularly in the industrial and healthcare sectors. The company’s property development track is also progressing well. Development of a new RM340 million 300-bed private hospital in Kuala Lumpur was completed in September 2020.

"PHB has also recently inked an agreement to develop a two million square feet warehouse in Shah Alam at a cost of approximately RM0.5 billion which is to be entirely leased to an international logistics company,” Mahmud Fauzi said.

He said they are also actively negotiating the development of new private hospitals in Selangor as well as in the East Coast.

The new property assets will support the introduction of new tranches of AHB units in the near future, he said. — Bernama