PETALING JAYA, Oct 27 — Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd (MDV) plans to raise RM2 billion funding from the capital market via a bond/sukuk issuance programme next month.
Chairman Khairul Azwan Harun said MDV is moving away from government-guaranteed bonds and sukuk since its establishment in 2002, as part of its funding diversification strategy in growing its funding capacity, ensuring liquidity, and long-term self-sustainability.
“This will be MDV’s fourth fund, which also marks our first fund to be raised based on our standalone credit rating,” he said at a media briefing entitled “Driving the Technology Sector’s Post-pandemic Growth” here, today.
The RM2 billion bond/sukuk funding is part of MDV's five key initiatives that the company is taking to strengthen its role in developing the technology (tech) sector.
As one of the immediate initiatives, Khairul Azwan said, MDV will extend the moratorium for affected customers comprising startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to recover their business and regain operational stability.
“We will look at the level of difficulties of each company/startup. It could be three months or six or up to 12 months...it depends,” he said.
He said MDV has undertaken three moratorium measures, and thus far, the implementation of the moratorium since the Movement Control Order (MCO) in 2020 had benefitted 66 companies with total deferments of RM134 million comprising principal and profit payments.
“MDV also introduced the Liquidity Financing for Technology Startups (LIFTS) facility last year (previously known as TAFRF), which is a RM100 million special programme for tech companies which were badly hit by Covid-19, by supporting companies’ short-term cash flow issues.
“MDV has so far approved over RM74 million in financing for 64 companies and has disbursed RM33.50 million to 35 companies in various technology sectors under this programme,” said Khairul Azwan.
Elaborating on the matter, MDV chief executive officer Nizam Mohamed Nadzri said the company has also proposed to expand the programme into LIFTS 2.0 with an additional fund of RM100 million to help eligible startups and SMEs grow and develop plans in achieving their post-pandemic growth potential.
He said LIFTS 2.0 will maintain a low interest rate threshold and financing will be capped at RM10 million per applicant.
Meanwhile, in its capacity as a provider of venture debt financing for venture capital (VC)-backed startups, Nizam said MDV has received approval from the Finance Ministry to establish a Venture Capital Company (VCC) and a Venture Capital Management Company (VCMC).
This will enable MDV to create better financing opportunities for early-stage technology-based startups and companies, typically between the Seed and Series A funding cycle.
“Another initiative is to establish a National Technology Financing Hub at Technology Park Malaysia, where it will be our new head office.
“We envision the hub will also function as a Centre of Excellence for Venture Finance, and provide infrastructure support such as research, training centres and so on that contributes to the strengthening of the startup ecosystem in Malaysia,” he said. — Bernama
