Malaysia's Khazanah to increase high impact investments via $1.4 billion fund

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd will aim to raise its high-impact and commercially viable investments over the next five years through a 6 billion ringgit ($1.4 billion) internal fund to help build up the nation's economic competitiveness and resilience, it said on Thursday.

It said in a statement that the allocation will be funded through profits and capital returned from its commercial investments while it continues with its divestment and portfolio rebalancing strategy.

Khazanah said it will pursue greater accountability in its development investing, in line with a new initiative launched by the government for state-linked investment firms to execute refreshed mandates.

The funds are fine-tuning their mandates to focus on investments that can create more impactful economic and social benefits and have more of a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) areas as well.

Khazanah said it will include clear development-specific target outcomes in addition to its existing financial targets.

"The development target outcomes will be linked to forward-looking national agendas and aspirations, and will include targets such as improvements to household income, creation of high-value employment and other socioeconomic target outcomes," it said.