KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional confirmed today news that all nine of its board members, including managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar, have offered their resignations.
“This is done in order to facilitate a smooth and orderly transition under the new Government.
“The current Board have been honoured to serve, and feels it appropriate to offer the new Government the discretion and reaffirm the prerogative to form the new Board,” the company said in a statement early this morning.
Apart from Azman, the other eight who were on the board were: Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, Tan Sri Md Nor Md Yusof Tan Sri Mohamed Azman Yahya, Datuk Mohammed Azlan Hashim, former Bank Negara Malaysia official Tan Sri Andrew Sheng Len Tao, Tan Sri Raja Arshad Raja Uda, Datuk Nirmala Menon, and Yeo Kar Peng.
Khazanah added that it will issue another statement on its board once details are available.
Singapore daily Straits Times broke the news on the mass resignation of the Khazanah board members today, citing unnamed government officials and financial executives.
It said the mass resignations follow Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s purported public criticism against Khazanah two weeks ago in which he said the fund had deviated from the original purpose of its creation — to support Bumiputera equity in Malaysia.
Khazanah was formed in 1994 by Dr Mahathir during his first tenure as prime minister.
Khazanah holds stakes in Tenaga Nasional, Telekom Malaysia, Axiata Group, CIMB Group, Malaysia Airports Holdings, IHH Healthcare, UEM Sunrise Bhd and is the owner of Malaysia Airlines.
