Green Packet to reallocate private placement funds after Sri Lanka JV termination

GREEN Packet Bhd is revising its use of private placement proceeds after calling off a planned joint venture in Sri Lanka, citing prolonged regulatory delays and lack of engagement from the local government.
The RM10 million project, intended to build a nationwide tourism digital platform with Sri Lanka-based TTISB, was officially scrapped on May 23, 2025.
With RM7.15 million unutilised, the company will redirect funds towards expanding its money-lending business, enhancing digital infrastructure, upgrading its smart residential and parking platform, and supporting working capital.
Green Packet also plans to invest RM1.2 million into a new loan management system via its lending arm Packet Interactive Sdn Bhd, expected to go live by Q2 2026.
So far, Green Packet has raised RM9.46 million from the placement, with a further RM5.32 million to come.
It is also seeking shareholder approval to extend the usage timeframe for working capital from 12 to 24 months. –TMR

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Star

an hour ago

• The Star

DR Congo extends suspension of cobalt exports by three months

KINSHASA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has extended its temporary suspension of cobalt exports for an additional three months, citing persistently high inventory levels in both domestic and international markets. The move follows a four-month export halt announced in February. The extension was announced on Saturday by the DRC's Regulatory and Oversight Authority for Strategic Mineral Substances Markets (ARECOMS), the national body responsible for regulating the trade of critical mineral substances. Established in 2019, ARECOMS oversees the regulation of strategic minerals such as coltan, cobalt and germanium. Its mandate includes stabilizing markets, formalizing the artisanal sector, and ensuring compliance with international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulations. According to an official statement, the extended ban covers all cobalt extracted from industrial, semi-industrial, small-scale and artisanal mining operations, and takes effect immediately from the date of signature, June 21. ARECOMS said that a new decision will be issued before the end of the suspension period, which may either modify, extend, or lift the current export ban, depending on market developments. According to London-based data analytics and consulting firm GlobalData, the DRC's cobalt production is projected to reach 244 kilotonnes in 2024. The country is the world's largest cobalt producer, supplying over 80 percent of global output. Cobalt is a critical raw material used across various industries, particularly in the production of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones, and other electronic devices. The DRC's cobalt mining industry is primarily concentrated in the Katanga region, where both industrial and artisanal operations are prevalent.

The Star

7 hours ago

• The Star

South-East Asia's budget airlines bet on travel demand, despite competition woes: Analysis

SEOUL: South-East Asia's biggest budget airlines are pursuing a bruising capacity expansion race despite rising cost pressures that are squeezing profitability and led Qantas Airways to shut down Singapore-based offshoot Jetstar Asia. Low-cost carriers have proliferated in Asia in the past two decades as disposable incomes rise, supported by robust travel demand from Chinese tourists. Demand for air travel in Asia is expected to grow faster than other regions in the next few decades and carriers like Vietnam's VietJet Aviation and Malaysia-headquartered AirAsia are to buy more planes to add to their already large orderbooks as they seek to gain market share. But margins are thinner than in other regions. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an airline industry body, this year expects Asia-Pacific airlines to make a net profit margin of 1.9%, compared with a global average of 3.7%. Airlines across Asia have largely restored capacity since the pandemic, which has intensified competition, especially for price-sensitive budget travellers, and pulled airfares down from recent high levels. International airfares in Asia dropped 12% in 2024 from 2023, ForwardKeys data shows. AirAsia, the region's largest budget carrier, reported a 9% decline in average airfares in the first quarter as it added capacity and passed savings from lower fuel prices onto its customers. Adding to challenges for airlines, costs such as labour and airport charges are also rising, while a shortage of new planes is driving up leasing and maintenance fees. This shifting landscape prompted Australia's Qantas to announce last week that its loss-making low-cost intra-Asia subsidiary Jetstar Asia would shut down by the end of July after two decades of operations. Jetstar Asia said it had seen "really high cost increases" at its Singapore base, including double-digit rises in fuel, airport fees, ground handling and security charges. "It is a very thin buffer, and with margins this low, any cost increase can impact an airline's viability," said IATA Asia-Pacific Vice President Sheldon Hee, adding that operating costs were escalating in the region. Aviation data firm OAG in a February white paper said Asia-Pacific was the world's most competitive aviation market, with airfares driven down by rapid capacity expansion "perhaps to a point where profits are compromised". "Balancing supply to demand and costs to revenue have never been more critical," the report said of the region's airlines. South-East Asia has an unusually high concentration of international budget flights. Around two-thirds of international seats within South-East Asia so far this year were on budget carriers, compared to about one-third of international seats globally, CAPA Centre for Aviation data shows. Qantas took the option to move Jetstar Asia's aircraft to more cost-efficient operations in Australia and New Zealand rather than continue to lose money, analysts say. Budget operators in South-East Asia were struggling for profits amid fierce competition even before the pandemic and now there is the added factor of higher costs, said Asia-based independent aviation analyst Brendan Sobie. Low-cost carriers offer bargain fares by driving operating costs as low as possible. Large fleets of one aircraft type drive efficiencies of scale. Jetstar Asia was much smaller than local rivals, with only 13 aircraft. As of March 31, Singapore Airlines' budget offshoot Scoot had 53 planes, AirAsia had 225 and VietJet had 117, including its Thai arm. Low-cost Philippine carrier Cebu Pacific had 99. All four are adding more planes to their fleets this year and further into the future. VietJet on Tuesday signed a provisional deal to buy up to another 150 single-aisle Airbus planes at the Paris Airshow, in a move it said was just the beginning as the airline pursues ambitious growth. The deal comes weeks after it ordered 20 A330neo wide-body planes, alongside an outstanding order for 200 Boeing 737 MAX jets. AirAsia, which has an existing orderbook of at least 350 planes, is also in talks to buy 50 to 70 long-range single-aisle jetliners, and 100 regional jets that could allow it to expand to more destinations, its CEO Tony Fernandes said on Wednesday. "At the end of the day, it is go big or go home," said Subhas Menon, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. - Reuters

The Sun

10 hours ago

• The Sun

Europeans ditch US tech over trust, turn to local options

BERLIN: At a market stall in Berlin run by charity Topio, volunteers help people who want to purge their phones of the influence of U.S. tech firms. Since Donald Trump's inauguration, the queue for their services has grown. Interest in European-based digital services has jumped in recent months, data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb shows. More people are looking for e-mail, messaging and even search providers outside the United States. The first months of Trump's second presidency have shaken some Europeans' confidence in their long-time ally, after he signalled his country would step back from its role in Europe's security and then launched a trade war. 'It's about the concentration of power in U.S. firms,' said Topio's founder Michael Wirths, as his colleague installed on a customer's phone a version of the Android operating system without hooks into the Google ecosystem. Wirths said the type of people coming to the stall had changed: 'Before, it was people who knew a lot about data privacy. Now it's people who are politically aware and feel exposed.' Tesla chief Elon Musk, who also owns social media company X, was a leading adviser to the U.S. president before the two fell out, while the bosses of Amazon, Meta and Google-owner Alphabet took prominent spots at Trump's inauguration in January. Days before Trump took office, outgoing president Joe Biden had warned of an oligarchic 'tech industrial complex' threatening democracy. Berlin-based search engine Ecosia says it has benefited from some customers' desire to avoid U.S. counterparts like Microsoft's Bing or Google, which dominates web searches and is also the world's biggest email provider. 'The worse it gets, the better it is for us,' founder Christian Kroll said of Ecosia, whose sales pitch is that it spends its profits on environmental projects. Similarweb data shows the number of queries directed to Ecosia from the European Union has risen 27% year-on-year and the company says it has 1% of the German search engine market. But its 122 million visits from the 27 EU countries in February were dwarfed by 10.3 billion visits to Google, whose parent Alphabet made revenues of about $100 billion from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2024 - nearly a third of its $350 billion global turnover. Non-profit Ecosia earned 3.2 million euros ($3.65 million) in April, of which 770,000 euros was spent on planting 1.1 million trees. Google declined to comment for this story. Reuters could not determine whether major U.S. tech companies have lost any market share to local rivals in Europe. DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY The search for alternative providers accompanies a debate in Europe about 'digital sovereignty' - the idea that reliance on companies from an increasingly isolationist United States is a threat to Europe's economy and security. 'Ordinary people, the kind of people who would never have thought it was important they were using an American service are saying, 'hang on!',' said UK-based internet regulation expert Maria Farrell. 'My hairdresser was asking me what she should switch to.' Use in Europe of Swiss-based ProtonMail rose 11.7% year-on-year to March compared to a year ago, according to Similarweb, while use of Alphabet's Gmail, which has some 70% of the global email market, slipped 1.9%. ProtonMail, which offers both free and paid-for services, said it had seen an increase in users from Europe since Trump's re-election, though it declined to give a number. 'My household is definitely disengaging,' said British software engineer Ken Tindell, citing weak U.S. data privacy protections as one factor. Trump's vice president JD Vance shocked European leaders in February by accusing them - at a conference usually known for displays of transatlantic unity - of censoring free speech and failing to control immigration. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened visa bans for people who 'censor' speech by Americans, including on social media, and suggested the policy could target foreign officials regulating U.S. tech companies. U.S. social media companies like Facebook and Instagram parent Meta have said the European Union's Digital Services Act amounts to censorship of their platforms. EU officials say the Act will make the online environment safer by compelling tech giants to tackle illegal content, including hate speech and child sexual abuse material. Greg Nojeim, director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said Europeans' concerns about the U.S. government accessing their data, whether stored on devices or in the cloud, were justified. Not only does U.S. law permit the government to search devices of anyone entering the country, it can compel disclosure of data that Europeans outside the U.S. store or transmit through U.S. communications service providers, Nojeim said. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? Germany's new government is itself making efforts to reduce exposure to U.S. tech, committing in its coalition agreement to make more use of open-source data formats and locally-based cloud infrastructure. Regional governments have gone further - in conservative-run Schleswig-Holstein, on the Danish border, all IT used by the public administration must run on open-source software. Berlin has also paid for Ukraine to access a satellite-internet network operated by France's Eutelsat instead of Musk's Starlink. But with modern life driven by technology, 'completely divorcing U.S. tech in a very fundamental way is, I would say, possibly not possible,' said Bill Budington of U.S. digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Everything from push notifications to the content delivery networks powering many websites and how internet traffic is routed relies largely on U.S. companies and infrastructure, Budington noted. Both Ecosia and French-based search engine Qwant depend in part on search results provided by Google and Microsoft's Bing, while Ecosia runs on cloud platforms, some hosted by the very same tech giants it promises an escape from. Nevertheless, a group on messaging board Reddit called BuyFromEU has 211,000 members. 'Just cancelled my Dropbox and will switch to Proton Drive,' read one post. Mastodon, a decentralised social media service developed by German programmer Eugen Rochko, enjoyed a rush of new users two years ago when Musk bought Twitter, later renamed X. But it remains a niche service. Signal, a messaging app run by a U.S. nonprofit foundation, has also seen a surge in installations from Europe. Similarweb's data showed a 7% month-on-month increase in Signal usage in March, while use of Meta's WhatsApp was static. Meta declined to comment for this story. Signal did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. But this kind of conscious self-organising is unlikely on its own to make a dent in Silicon Valley's European dominance, digital rights activist Robin Berjon told Reuters. 'The market is too captured,' he said. 'Regulation is needed as well.'