KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd grew its net asset value (NAV) to RM86bil in 2021 from RM79bil in the previous year despite facing the headwinds brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

       The government's strategic investment arm said this brought the compounded annual growth rate to 5.8% since 2004 as it continued to fulfil its mandate to grow and safeguard the nation's assets.

       Over the course of the year, Khazanah deployed RM8.7bil in new investments, with 41.7% or RM3.6bil invested in Malaysia, and RM4.8bil raised form monetisation of assets in its portfolio

       However, the pandemic impacted the group's businesses in 2021, which reported a lower profit from operations of RM670mil, as compared to RM2.9bil.

       "The reduction of profit was mainly due to continuing financial assistance being extended to Khazanah’s airlines and tourism companies still weathering headwinds from Covid-19 pandemic.

       "Profit was also impacted by lower fair value gains and lower dividend income from investee companies on the ack of subdued 2020 earnings," it said.

       Khazanah declared a dividend of RM2bil to the government for 2021.

       On the performance of its Commercial Fund, Khazanah said it met long-term expectations with a NAV time-weighted rate of return (TWRR) of 19% in 2021, which represents a three-year rolling return of 7%.

       This puts Khazanah on track to meet its long-term five-year rolling target of Consumer Price Index (CPI) +3%.

       Khazanah attributed the recovery of the listed portfolio in Malaysia to a recovery after three years of underperformance, successful monetisation of private equity investments in the US and Europe and strong performance of its new, still-in-progress Public Equities Developed Market deployment programmes.

       Khazanah’s portfolio rebalancing towards the target Strategic Asset Allocation saw further deployment into public equities – developed markets, real assets and private equity.

       For its Malaysian assets, focus continues to be on value-creation efforts to future-proof and drive performance improvements in their businesses.

       Meanwhile, the Strategic Fund recorded a NAV TWRR of negative 11.4% in 2021 due to investments that were sensitive to the pandemic, namely in the aviation and tourism sectors.

       Looking ahead, Khazanah managing director Datuk Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir outlined the investment fund's long-term strategies, which include a new Dana Impak allocation aimed to catalyse new growth sectors, playing a more active institutional stewardship role, leveraging global

       networks to facilitate flows of knowledge and investment opportunities back to Malaysia, and creating societal value for Malaysians.

       “These last two years have been very challenging for us to navigate volatile markets and the social and

       economic impact of the pandemic.

       "We must continue to rally together and take this opportunity to chart a path towards growth, emerging stronger as a nation.

       "We truly believe that Khazanah’s refreshed strategy will allow us to achieve this, and to this end, we call upon our fellow Malaysians to join us on this journey towards Advancing Malaysia,” he said.