Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional on Tuesday reported higher operating profits, with its investment portfolio seeing a return of 5.2% in 2025, weathering uncertainties arising from U.S. tariffs and geopolitical risks.
Khazanah is a major shareholder in some of Malaysia’s biggest companies, including its second-largest lender CIMB Group, power utility Tenaga Nasional and the Malaysia Aviation Group, the national carrier.
It invests in sectors including energy, healthcare, information technology and real estate, according to its website.
Khazanah, owned by the finance ministry, reported operating profits of 5.6 billion ringgit ($1.43 billion) last year, up from 5.1 billion ringgit in 2024, Managing Director Amirul Feisal Wan Zahid told reporters on Tuesday.
Its net assets grew to 105 billion ringgit from 103.6 billion ringgit a year earlier, while its annual dividend to the government doubled to 2 billion ringgit in 2025, he said.
Amirul Feisal said he expected Malaysia to maintain its a resilient growth path, sustained by private and foreign investments.
The country’s economy grew 4.9% in 2025, exceeding official projections, according to advance estimates released by the government last month.
“For 2026… we’re going to accelerate execution as we plan our Malaysia investment strategy as well as our global investment strategy,” Amirul Feisal said, adding that Khazanah would look to diversify risks across asset classes and geographies.
In January, Amirul Feisal said Khazanah plans to channel more capital into strengthening Malaysia’s power system and supporting local semiconductor firms as artificial intelligence drives the next investment cycle.
The fund has also been tasked with developing downstream activities in the rare earths sector through international collaboration.
Malaysia, which has an estimated 16.1 million tons of rare earth deposits, is keen to develop the local industry, but lacks the knowledge and technology to mine and process the minerals critical for making defence equipment, electric vehicles and other key goods.
Reuters reported last year that China and Malaysia were in talks for Khazanah to partner a Chinese firm to develop a rare earths refinery.
Khazanah on Tuesday struck a cautious note on the matter, saying that developing a rare earth ecosystem would take a long time.
“In Malaysia, a lot of the deposits or the ones that have rare earths still have not been validated. In terms of extraction, there’s some environmental requirements related to that,” Amirul Feisal said.
“There’s a lot of policymaking… a lot of validation work that needs to be done before anything else.”
($1 = 3.9230 ringgit)
Reuters
