Wednesday, 29 Jul 2020 05:46 PM MYTDatuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is pictured at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex July 29, 2020. ― Picture by Firdaus Latif
Shaheen said he had initially asked if Nurulhidayah knew of any prospective buyers for the Bali hotel or Abdul Rashid’s stake in Ri-Yaz Group, noting that Nurulhidayah later expressed a personal interest to buy the stake after viewing the company’s proposal. Following a meeting with Exim Bank’s CEO and chairman at the Home Ministry’s office in mid-2016 that was attended by Shaheen, Nurulhidayah, and Zahid, Shaheen said that the bank had agreed to the request to restructure Ri-Yaz’s loan and to replace Abdul Rashid’s name with Nurulhidayah’s name as the loan guarantor.
According to Shaheen, he had on December 28, 2016 received a notification from Exim Bank that it was agreeable to restructure the US$24.8 million loan by extending the loan period but that the bank wanted Abdul Rashid to remain as guarantor and to hold a 10 per cent stake in Ri-Yaz Group. Shaheen said that he had then understood that this meant that the sale of Abdul Rashid’s stake to Nurulhidayah did not succeed. Shaheen confirmed that he had never sighted the July 1, 2016 share sale and purchase agreement between Abdul Rashid and Nurulhidayah as the transactions were meant to be between the two of them.