By Syed Akbar Ali
Someone raised the issue that there is an overbearing fear that GLCs will go bankrupt.
I beg to differ. GLCs will never go bankrupt. They will just become huge sinkholes and black holes where huge amounts of taxpayers money will disappear.
When Sime Darby could or should have gone bust because of their fiasco in Qatar and Bakun, the solution was easy. Before the sh*t hit the fan and the losses became public, just merge Sime with the much healthier balance sheeted Guthrie and Golden Hope. Abracadabra you have ‘the largest plantation company’ in the world or something like that. So GLCs will never go bust.
Khazanah Nasional Bhd paid over RM8.0 billion take over Parkway of Singapore. Their main assets are three hospitals in Singapore. However Parkway only owns a percentage of those three hospitals, approx. 35% stake. Over RM8.0 billion for 35% of three hospitals in Singapore? Malaysian taxpayers are going to get sick.
Then you have Malaysia Airlines. A commentor Little Bird said this in my Blog yesterday :
Well Little Bird, I did try that url. It said ‘disconnected’ or something. Tak dapat. Then I went directly to MAS’ website and went to their Financial Statements. That does not work either. They have a listing of the pages in their Audited Accounts. But if you click on pg 92 (as Little Bird suggested) it goes to page 195. Yes you can always go to the Registrar of Companies and find out. Maybe that is their idea.
According to Little Bird, the Government has pumped RM8.355 billion into MAS. So MAS will never go bust. Just merge them or keep pumping money into them.
In the banking industry, this has long been the practice. Did you know that in Malaysia a bank can never be allowed to fail? This is an unwritten policy. When a bank suffers too many bad loans (like many banks have suffered in the past) they don’t go bust. Their name gets changed. New shareholders take over, pump in new capital, change the name of the bank and life goes on.
Or banks just get merged. There was Southern Bank, then it was swallowed by Bank of Commerce. BOC then swallowed the much larger Bank Bumiputra. Then Bank of Commerce’s ikan bilis size subsidiary Commerce International Merchant Bank Bhd (or CIMB) swallowed the entire whale and became CIMB Bank.
So the GLCs will never go bankrupt. Don’t worry. They just become blackholes and sinkholes, sucking up huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. But they think it is NOT taxpayers funds. It is “my own money”. If that was true, it must also be true that your dad left home and climbed back into the tree tops.
Our country cannot take this amount of financial abuse for ever, no matter how much oil we have in the ground. Long before we run out of easy oil money, the country will break down. Todays papers indicate that indeed the country is breaking up.
Seven people died in yet another bus accident yesterday. This time the driver did not even have a license. How was he employed if he had no license? This is called the “tidak apa” attitude. Close one eye. Possibly bribery was involved too along the way to keep the Authorities from hauling him up. Now seven people are dead.
The dead are mostly the poor and the lower income who travel by bus. They are mostly Malays. Innalilaahi wa inna ilaihi raajiun. Jadi yang mati, yang rugi, yang jadi miskin, yang susah orang Melayu juga.
Then the Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai says that we need to set up a ‘helicopter rescue service’. Cool suggestion man. That is easily say another RM3.0 billion project right there. RM200.0 million to buy the helicopters and RM2.8 billion to go shopping lah. Siapa mahu dapat project?
Tell me Mr Minister, who is going to make sure the helicopters do not fall out of the sky? Consultants? Boston can fly choppers ke? I thought they are good at flying kites.
Then Idris Jala reaffirmed his “Malaysia will go bankrupt by 2019” vision by saying that he will build 21 ‘Malaysia Malls’ overseas, mostly in China. This is part of the ETP, GTP, NKEA, NKRA, BS, C.R.A.P etc.
PETALING JAYA: Twenty-one Malaysia-themed malls will be opened abroad as part of the 1Malaysia Mall Project.
“These 1Malaysia Malls will be opened in various countries including China, Vietnam and Indonesia, and will be occupied by Malaysian retailers,” said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Pemandu chief executive officer Datuk Seri Idris Jala
So using our taxpayer’s money we are going to make the Chinese economy a ‘high income economy’ and create jobs in China for Chinese people working and doing business in these “Malaysia Malls”.
When all the hypermarkets in Malaysia (especially Mydin Hypermarket) are surviving by selling Made in China products to Malaysians, do we seriously expect to set up Malaysia Malls in China and sell ‘Made in Malaysia’ products to the Chinese?
How many billions are we spending on this “Malaysia Malls” anyway? RM1.0 billion, RM2.0 billion? RM3.0 billion? And who are the lucky cronies who will get these projects? GLCs again? Let me guess : they will use “their own money”.
Folks, do you think you or me can be the lucky ‘participants’ to get any of these “Malaysia Malls” contracts? We will have better chances of seeing a red crash helmet inside a Sikh temple.
But, being the optimist that I am, can the ‘Gomen’ pinjam to me say RM20.0 million only? I have an idea to build hi tech, post modern design, mini-malls (150,000 sf gross area) in urban neighborhoods around ‘small town’ Malaysia. Change the small town landscape a little. We can sell “Made In Malaysia”, ‘Made In China’, ‘Made In Korea’ goods etc. Apa macam? Boleh tak? Where can I go to isi the borang?
My mini malls can provide employment for Malaysian contractors, create ultra modern shopping environment for Malaysian retailers, create jobs for Malaysian retail workers, sell Malaysian products and stuff. And if the mall goes bust after five years, only RM20.0 million down the tubes ma. Boleh tak?
Folks, if you have time do read the comment by one person called Plus X-pert who posted some long comments at Rocky’s Bru some time ago. Its at the bottom of a post called Betollke?
According to Plus X-pert, Khazanah Nasional Bhd is engaged in building ‘waterfall debt’ or ‘cascading debt’. They borrow money by pledging the assets or cashflows of one company. Then they use the moneys thus borrowed to buy other assets. Then they pledge those assets and borrow yet more money to buy even more assets.
Are any of you old enough to remember a guy called Tan Koon Swan? In the 80s, he pledged shares in listed companies as security to borrow from the banks. Then he would take the money thus borrowed to buy even more shares. Then he would pledge those new shares (bought using the borrowed money) to the banks and borrow even more money and buy even more shares.
When the stock market collapsed, Tan Koon Swan eventually went to jail. He became a Born Again Christian and now lives happily ever after.
The moral of the story is : The story got no morals ma.