Saturday, February 8, 2025

MSM MALAYSIA HOLDINGS: A Sweet Spot for Growth

As the manufacturer of the popular household brand Gula Prai, MSM Malaysia
Holdings Berhad (MSM) has established itself as a leading refined sugar
producer in Malaysia. With a firm belief in fast-forwarding the future, Group
CEO Syed Feizal Syed Mohammad aims to drive the company towards bigger
and better things and doing so at record speed.

“2021 was a turning point for MSM. We achieved a significant turnaround after registering losses in the past eight quarters. This resulted in our market capitalisation more than doubling from RM401 million in 2020 to RM899.8 million in 2021.

We also witnessed our shareholders increasing by 30 percent, with institutional funds such as the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and the Norwegian sovereign fund, Norges Bank, becoming investors. This is an impressive feat as it means we meet the latter’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements.

In addition, Gula Prai was ranked the third most popular fast-moving consumer goods brand in the food and beverages category, further solidifying its position as a national household brand. We wrapped up the year with two silver awards at the 2021 National Annual Corporate Report Awards (NACRA).

At MSM, we are guided by a continually evolving strategic blueprint, which enabled us to remain resilient despite challenges in 2021. We focused on our corporate charters and values, in areas such as safety and quality, integrity and business ethics, as well as diversity in the workforce. Stronger governance, process controls, ESG framework and targets were also put in place at warp speed, resulting in greater efficiency.

Aside from searching for growth opportunities, we also sought to identify opportunity losses. For instance, we optimised our selling price to wholesalers within the gazetted price afforded to us as producers by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. By doing so, we were able to increase our margins.

Fast Forward

Moving forward, we aim to push our export fronts within the Asia Pacific and increase our market share from 8 percent to 11 percent by 2022 and 15 percent by 2023. Within three years, we aim to achieve RM5 billion in revenue and RM2 billion in market capitalisation. Securing a contract to be Coca-Cola’s sugar supplier for domestic and international production is a step in the right direction.

We will continue to proactively tackle challenges such as rising raw sugar, freight and energy costs through effective hedging and risk management. This entails diversifying our customer base and markets to increase resilience against global shocks.

MSM will soon subscribe to the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard, as we aim to be a corporate leader, not only in sugar but also ESG. Similarly, we are exploring IR 4.0 technologies, particularly smart contracts, smart manufacturing and smart logistics to increase traceability and efficiency across our operations and supply chains.

While we continue enhancing our brand in existing markets, we aim to expand
to the MENA and African regions, and possibly look beyond sugar to find
a second sweet spot within the essential food segment.”

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