“2017 was a good year for Malaysia overall. The effect has been felt in the stock market,” Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) chairman Abdul Wahid Omar said in a report by The Star.

Wahid was speaking on the sidelines of Invest Malaysia 2018 after taking part in a panel discussion on “Policies, Capital Markets and the Role of Corporate Malaysia for a Sustainable Future”.

Bursa Malaysia’s benchmark FBM KLCI rose 9.86% last year and closed at 1,796.81 points on Dec 29, the last trading day of the year. Since the beginning of 2018, the FBM KLCI has risen 2.29% to 1,838.04 points.

Wahid said the market capitalisation of PNB-controlled companies had grown as a result of the rise in equity prices in 2017, with the momentum expected to continue in 2018.

PNB, Malaysia’s largest investment manager, has stakes in Malayan Banking Bhd, the country’s largest bank by assets, and property developer SP Setia Bhd.

PNB, together with the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), recently said it had signed a heads of terms (letter of intent) on the purchase of commercial assets in the second phase of the Battersea Station development project.

The decision, they said, was purely an investment consideration, and the potential “reorganisation of ownership” of the project in London at an estimated £1.608 billion (RM8.76 billion) was being explored without any government intervention.