Khazanah Nasional: What Malaysia's Sovereign Wealth Fund Actually Owns and Owes

At a glance

Full name	Khazanah Nasional Berhad
Registration number	199301020767 (275505-K)
Type	Sovereign wealth fund, wholly owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated
Operations began	1994, as custodian of the Government’s commercial assets
Classification	One of six Government-Linked Investment Companies (GLICs)
Net assets (FY2025)	RM105 billion
Profit from operations (FY2025)	RM5.6 billion
Dividend to Government (2025)	RM2 billion; RM21.1 billion cumulative since 2004
Website	khazanah.com.my

Khazanah does not manage anyone’s personal retirement account, and it doesn’t sell units to the public. That single fact is what separates it from the two funds people most often confuse it with — the EPF and PNB — and it’s the question this page answers.

What a GLIC actually is

“GLIC” is the label the Ministry of Finance uses for a specific group of state-linked investment entities. Per its own PERKUKUH reform documentation, Malaysia has six: Khazanah Nasional, Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (KWAP), the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) and Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT).

Being grouped together for policy purposes doesn’t mean these six work the same way. They differ on the two questions that matter most: who gives them money, and who they owe it to.

Where Khazanah’s money comes from — and where it doesn’t

Khazanah commenced operations in 1994 in a custodial role, managing the Government’s existing commercial assets and investing in strategic and high-technology sectors. In practice, that means Khazanah’s starting capital was the Government’s own stakes in companies — not money collected from individuals.

Today Khazanah’s portfolio is organised into an Investments Portfolio (private equity, real assets and public markets), a Dana Impak developmental portfolio, legacy Developmental Assets, and Special Situations holdings. Major listed positions include CIMB, Telekom Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional, IHH Healthcare, Axiata, Malaysia Airports and Astro.

For 2025, Khazanah reported net assets of RM105 billion, total assets of RM156 billion, and profit from operations of RM5.6 billion — a 5.2% return for the year and a 6.1% seven-year rolling annualised return. It returned RM2 billion to the Federal Government as dividend in 2025, taking its cumulative dividend contribution since 2004 to RM21.1 billion. A year earlier, for 2024, net asset value stood at RM103.6 billion on a profit from operations of RM5.1 billion and a NAV time-weighted rate of return of 24.6%, with a dividend of RM1 billion paid for that year.

That dividend line is the whole point: Khazanah’s “customer” is the Government of Malaysia, not a pool of individual savers.

Khazanah vs EPF vs PNB

	Khazanah Nasional	EPF (KWSP)	PNB
What it is	Sovereign wealth fund	Mandatory retirement fund	Unit trust manager
Founded	Operations commenced 1994	Constituted under the Employees Provident Fund Act 1991	17 March 1978
Who funds it	Government-held assets + retained investment income	Mandatory monthly employer + employee payroll contributions	Public subscriptions to unit trust funds (e.g. ASB, ASM), managed via its ASNB subsidiary
Who it answers to	The Federal Government (dividends)	Individual members, each with a personal account	Individual unit holders in its ASNB-managed funds
Core mandate	Grow Malaysia’s long-term national wealth; hold and grow the state’s strategic/commercial assets	Protect and grow individual members’ retirement savings	Enhance the economic wealth of the Bumiputera community and all Malaysians, through unit trust returns
Individual account holders	None	Yes — each member has a personal EPF account	Yes — each investor holds units directly

The distinction in practice: if you’re an employee, your EPF balance is your own money, legally ring-fenced to you, with the Act itself guaranteeing a minimum annual dividend. If you hold ASB or ASM units, that’s your own investment in a fund run by PNB through its ASNB subsidiary. Neither of those things is true of Khazanah — no individual Malaysian has a personal claim on a slice of it. It exists to hold and grow the state’s own assets, on the state’s behalf.

Common mistakes

• Treating Khazanah as a pension fund. It has no members and pays no individual dividends to citizens — that’s EPF’s and PNB’s function, not Khazanah’s.
• Assuming every GLC is a Khazanah company. Khazanah holds stakes in some well-known GLCs, but EPF, PNB, KWAP, LTH and LTAT each hold their own separate GLC stakes too. See GLC for how the GLC/GLIC distinction works.
• Confusing “sovereign wealth fund” with “government budget.” Khazanah’s balance sheet is separate from the Federal Government’s own accounts in the federal budget; it pays a dividend to the Government rather than being funded from it annually.

What’s next

• How the government’s own books work: the federal budget
• Where GLCs like Khazanah’s holdings actually trade: Bursa Malaysia
• The other GLIC most people confuse with Khazanah: EPF
• The fund that actually sells units to the public: PNB
• What a GLC is, and how it differs from a GLIC: GLC
• Malaysia’s central bank, a separate statutory body entirely: Bank Negara Malaysia