The YTL Family Tree: 5 Stocks, Scored

One family, a 67-point gap

5 listed companies, scored from 19 to 86.

When someone says "I bought YTL", which YTL? A parent controls the children, and YTL Power has a child of its own.

Why is the parent low too? Its accounts include its children. In FY2026, YTL Power brought in about 70% of YTL Corp's revenue (RM22.0b of RM31.6b, before removing sales between group companies). When the child spends big, the parent's numbers carry it.

This family is around you

Own the shares or not, you probably use what they make.

And in 1993, Malaysia's first independent power producer (IPP) licence went to YTL.

How a cement company became an "AI stock"

A data centre needs 4 things. YTL has all 4 in the family.

In December 2023, Nvidia's Jensen Huang visited Malaysia for the first time. That week, YTL Power announced an AI data centre in Kulai, Johor, with Nvidia: an RM20 billion investment. Since then, many people call it an AI stock.

In the US, new data centres wait a long time for power. So big tech looks for places with power, land and fast builders. Johor sits right next to Singapore. Most companies need 4 partners for that; YTL needs none.

It also bought gas turbines early, while a worldwide shortage was pushing up the cost of new gas power plants. So YTL may not be an AI company. It may be the landlord of the AI era.

The landlord's leases: the order book

Only 298 of 1,200 MW is signed.

A data centre rents out space and power, priced per kW per month. So its order book is counted in megawatts (MW). Figures from YTL Power's latest quarterly report.

What could that rent be worth? Roughly, per year:

How it's worked out: Asia-Pacific rents run about US$140 to US$470 per kW a month (CBRE, 2025). At the cheapest, one MW brings in about RM6.9 million a year.

The 150 MW in use works out close to what YTL Power actually earned from data centres last year, so the method is in the right range. The whole plan would be about 9.5 times today.

This is revenue, not profit. The unsigned part isn't contracted or built yet. Slow building, higher power costs, or customers pushing rents down would all eat into it.

So why is YTL Power still 19?

The money goes out years before it comes back.

Today's YTL Power looks like a property developer expanding fast: lots of orders, a future that could be good, and the money has to go in first. It has already put about RM10.6 billion into data centres.

What comes back has only just started. Data-centre profit before tax went from RM32.1 million to RM345.5 million in a year, and that includes a one-time catch-up of earlier income.

The score reads the accounts: money out, debt up, more risk. So it's low, and that logic holds. The market asks a different question: not what it earns today, but what it could earn in five years.

19 doesn't mean the company is bad, and it isn't a call to sell. Whether the rest gets built and paid for will show in each quarter's report.

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