PETRONAS, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the founding Lim family of Yinson Holdings Bhd (KL:YINSON) are in talks to take private the oil-and-gas firm, sources said.
The three parties are forming a consortium to buy out Yinson that owns one of the world’s largest fleets of floating production storage offloading (FPSO) vessels, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal could be announced soon, one of the people told The Edge.
Yinson has nine floating assets and two more on order across Southeast Asia, South America and Africa.
KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 27): PETRONAS, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the founding Lim family of Yinson Holdings Bhd (KL:YINSON) are in talks to take private the oil-and-gas firm, sources said.
The three parties are forming a consortium to buy out Yinson that owns one of the world’s largest fleets of floating production storage offloading (FPSO) vessels, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal could be announced soon, one of the people told The Edge.
Before the skyline fully wakes, Malaysia is already moving. A small business owner lifts the shutters. A delivery rider checks the day’s route. A parent sends money to a child. In a rural classroom, a student settles into a lesson that may change what feels possible. None of these moments will become a national monument, yet together they show what progress looks like: people gaining more ways to learn, earn, build and move forward.
PETRONAS and the Lim family did not respond to requests for comment from The Edge, while the EPF declined to comment.
Yinson has nine floating assets and two more on order across Southeast Asia, South America and Africa. The company’s executive chairman, Lim Han Weng, and his family have a 27.68%-stake in the firm, while the EPF owns 17.09%.
Another substantial shareholder is Retirement Fund Inc, the pension fund for civil servants better known as KWAP, holding 6.84% of Yinson.
PETRONAS, officially Petroliam Nasional Bhd, also has its own FPSO business through MISC Bhd (KL:MISC). The 51%-owned unit operates six FPSOs, five floating storage and offloading vessels, and one floating production and storage facility spread across Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Brazil.
In 2024, MISC was in talks with Bumi Armada Bhd (KL:ARMADA), which operates seven assets, to merge their FPSO business. The proposal was mutually called off in August 2025 after they found it would not fully achieve the intended objectives.
Yinson has been in the news for potential privatisation. In June 2025, Yinson said the group’s major shareholders were in exploratory discussions with “various parties with reference to potential corporate proposals regarding their shareholdings”.
At the time, it was reported that the Lim family was in talks with New York-based investment firm Stonepeak Partners to take the firm private. However, the plans were withdrawn earlier this year.
Yinson also owns renewable energy assets with 557-megawatt capacity in operations and another 148-megawatt under construction in India, Peru and New Zealand. The company also operates electric vehicle charging stations in Malaysia and Singapore.
Yinson, which chalked up net profit of RM683 million and revenue of RM5.4 billion in the financial year ended Jan 31, 2026 (FY2026), first entered the FPSO business in 2011 in Vietnam, where it builds and leases out floating vessels used in offshore oil and gas production.
It became a major FPSO player in mid-2013 after acquiring Norwegian FPSO company Fred Olsen Production ASA for RM551.3 million, and now own stakes in offshore assets across Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
The EPF, which manages the retirement fund of private sector employees in Malaysia, emerged as a major shareholder of Yinson in 2015, the same year it won its first major contract with Italian oil major Eni for the supply of FPSO vessel in Ghana for US$2.54 billion.
Source: theedgemalaysia.com