Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation Berhad

Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation spent most of its life as the industrial arm of Malaysia's naval programmes, and the last few years reshaping itself after losing the shipyard that made its name. Listed on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia since 2007, the group is controlled by the Armed Forces Fund Board, the retirement scheme for Malaysian service personnel, which holds close to 59 percent of the shares. The company splits its work into three sectors: defence and security, aerospace, and weapons and combat systems. Defence and security covers shipbuilding, maintenance and repair, and electronics manufacturing.

Shipbuilding is the part that changed. Boustead Naval Shipyard at Lumut delivered six Kedah-class New Generation Patrol Vessels to the Royal Malaysian Navy and held the RM9 billion contract for six Maharaja Lela class Littoral Combat Ships, the frigates at the centre of the navy's 15-to-5 fleet transformation. After that programme stalled, the government acquired the yard through a Ministry of Finance vehicle and renamed it Lumut Naval Shipyard, taking the Langkawi facility with it. The group's shipyards heritage still shows in its commercial range of anchor handling tug supply vessels, offshore support craft, passenger vessels, tankers and barges, and in ship repair for commercial owners and the oil and gas sector.

Submarine support is now the flagship. BHIC Submarine Engineering Services provides in-service support for the navy's Prime Minister's Class Scorpene boats and maintains the submarine base at Teluk Sepangar in Kota Kinabalu. Boustead DCNS Naval Corporation, a joint venture with France's Naval Group set up in 2009, carries out refits and handles technical engineering, logistics engineering and spares supply.

Two companies run the weapons and combat systems sector. BHIC Defence Techservices refurbishes, installs and trials communications sets, sensors and navigation aids, guns and launching systems, army air defence equipment, 3D surveillance radars and electronic boards. BHIC Bofors Asia, a venture with BAE Systems Bofors formed in 2004, markets Bofors naval guns, supplies parts, maintains the guns and manages obsolescence on legacy mountings.

Aerospace runs through joint ventures. BHIC AeroServices operates the group hangar at the Malaysian International Aerospace Centre in Subang, maintaining Fennec AS555SN and EC725 helicopters for the navy and Dauphin AS365N3 aircraft for the Maritime Enforcement Agency under parts, repair and consumables by the hour arrangements, alongside painting, component overhaul, interior refurbishment and fleet management. Airbus Helicopters Simulation Center provides simulator flight training. Contraves, a manufacturing venture with Rheinmetall running since 1983, assembles printed circuit boards, radio frequency and low frequency cables and electronic sub-assemblies, prints metallic parts and runs a Combat Systems Training Centre with maritime simulators.