This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on August 1, 2017.
KUALA LUMPUR: Today is the day that 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) is due to make good on its settlement agreement with Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company PJSC (IPIC).
The first payment of US$602.725 million (RM2.58 billion) is due to be paid by July 31 midnight, New York time (-12 hours). This gives 1MDB till noon in Malaysia, and many will be watching to see if the state-owned fund can meet its obligations.
After all, other than asset disposals, this transaction will be the first major cross-border transaction that 1MDB musters since it became a controversial topic back in 2015.
It will also be the fund’s first major foreign transaction since the US Department of Justice (DoJ) began civil forfeiture action on US$1.7 billion worth of assets, allegedly linked to an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated from 1MDB.