PETALING JAYA, 11 Jan: Two national pension funds, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Retirement Fund Incorporated (RFI) claimed to have suffered losses on paper with an estimate of RM75 million due to purchasing Felda Global Ventures Holding (FGVH) shares.
The Chairman of the PKR Investment Bureau and Plantation, Wong Chen, claimed that this is because both the funds were found to be buying FGVH shares from the market although analysts found that the stock prices fell sharply as early as 9 August, 2012.
He said that the behaviour of share purchasing by EPF and RFI is very contradictory, in fact it should not be practised by a pension fund.
“On the whole, their purchases in the open market from 29 June 2012 to 4 January 2013 has incurred an estimated spending of RM455 million (EPF) and RM305 million (RFI).
“PKR believes that EPF contributors and civil servants have the right to know whether the purchase of FGVH shares (most of which are contradictory to the view of analysts and the market) are politically motivated,” he said in a press conference at the PKR headquarters today.
According to him, analysts average share price for FGVH is RM4.19 and if it drops to that level, EPF and RFI will both experience paper losses of RM146 million and RM129 million.
“In the worst case scenario, if the price drops to the Alliance Research target price, which is RM3.53 (the second-lowest among 12 latest analysis of FGVH stock), EPF and RFI will incur estimated paper losses of RM327 million and RM295 million,” he added.
