We begin in Penang. Sort of.

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GreatAsic Technology on Tuesday announced a US$6.9 million pre-Series A investment led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, the venture arm of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.

Malaysian outfits — Ehsan Capital and Gobi Partners — were along for the ride, as well.

GreatAsic is seven months old but already making waves as it rides the government’s semiconductor policy.

More importantly, it’s one of the first three recipients of design tokens from UK-based chip designer Arm.

Here’s what’s under the GreatAsic hood:

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On Monday, Astro announced the departure of Euan Smith as Group CEO, and replacing him in the interim is the very man he succeeded: Henry Tan.

Smith’s departure sent me back to his interview with Digital News Asia in July last year.

There he was, waving away Astro’s grim prognosis with a whiteboard and doodles and an infectious optimism, declaring that he “would not be in the building” if he didn’t believe the media firm had a very bright and positive future.

He sold them the gospel of Astro’s “three big bets”: the sooka streaming app, broadband, and addressable advertising.

He even played the wounded party on legacy satellite costs, lamenting that he hated being “beaten up in the markets” for “doing the right thing for Malaysia”.

Such was his aura that DNA’s writers entered the premise with “some trepidation”.

Less than a year later, Smith is out of the building.

After three years helming a brutal financial slide, he stepped down, and the board pulled the ripcord by reinstating Tan to stop the bleeding.

The irony here is thick.

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I wanted to sign in to my LinkedIn account and instead of just typing the password, I clicked the Google sign-in instead.

What came next was an entirely fresh profile. Of course I quickly filled up the form after reaching out to LinkedIn’s AI assistant.

Yes, guys, I am getting there, technology’s “the big bad”. Gasp!

This morning’s newsletter is a breezy one as I am prepping something meatier and more business-ish, which should follow soon.

Right now, it’s all about our favourite blue bloods. They’ve been a noisy lot lately.

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For the first time in years, a Kuok is back at the wheel of the family’s listed crown jewel.

On Wednesday, PPB Group named Kuok Meng Xiong (MX) as its incoming group managing director, effective September.

He succeeds Lim Soon Huat, who steps down after fourteen years of stewardship.

MX joined the board only in March but was pushed up to managing director in what sources believe was a decision long since made.

And it is, on paper, consequential.

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I also published that the PE firm is looking to pull off a healthcare roll-up with PMG Healthcare as the anchor.

What I didn’t do was step back to see some of the inner workings of a fund whose founders bring an elite pedigree to the deal table.

And to ask: what is a fund like Ikhlas actually selling to all that patient, government-linked capital?

I’ll begin with the most obvious starting point: the old boys’ club.

Brainjam is a space for founding members where I post loose notes and other musings that do not make the cut for a full-on newsletter.

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The section is a mainstay and (for want of a better word) a value-add for subscribers who decide to take that leap of faith in purchasing the highest tier of the newsletter.

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Yesterday’s story, ICYMI👇🏾

The typical advice you’d get if you’re running a paid Substack like me is that the monthly freebie has to read like a teaser.

So good that it convinces the free-list readers, and the first-timers, to plug in a subscription.

That may be sound advice.

But one thing I’ve learnt over the years is that if someone wants to pay for con…

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We’ll move quickly from Ikhlas Capital’s rumoured healthcare roll-up to a Care Concierge follow-on that died at the eleventh hour, to Jelawang renting fund-manager expertise from London and a HappyFresh bet that’s turning into a fire sale.

In all these the connective issue, as ever, is government-linked money doing the work.

Later in the evening, I’ll be publishing the usual monthly recap, so keep an eye out for that, too.

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Nazir Razak’s Ikhlas Capital is purportedly attempting a roll-up, sources familiar with the matter tell me.

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One of Malaysia’s biggest tech scandals just won’t die, but we finally have a resolution to its most critical vulnerability: the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ).

If you’ve been following my previous newsletters on the Fusionex collapse, you’ll remember the massive cliffhanger1.

First, a quick rewind, before I get to the updates:

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One of the things some of us newsletter writers or one-man shows have to do is generally work the ground.

That’s just a fancy way of saying we have coffee or lunch with sources.

Because sooner or later we’ll need to close the gap, and if we don’t, we regress to merely being influencers, which is not too bad in this day and age.

I was ranting with a few friends of how the influencer economy works.

That is, instead of doing proper media campaigns, even government agencies will throw easy money to a sleazy influencer, as long as the positive messaging gets out.

And we wonder whether or not these government agencies know any better because influencers also farm anonymous accounts to manufacture (the right word here) engagement.

I mean it’s bad both ways: if the agency doesn’t know about farming, then they are not doing their homework and if they do, then that’s throwing good money after bad.

At minimum, an Instagram or TikTok video touting how great a government policy is can fetch roughly RM20,000.

That’s the floor. Not bad, isn’t it? I am in the wrong business, surely.

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So one of the things I’ve managed to narrow down, with some elbow grease and coincidence (truly), is the source of Bloomberg’s first piece on then MACC chief Azam Baki’s ownership of a tiny stake in Bursa-listed lender Velocity Capital Partners.

This was the beginning of what we see as a mainstream discussion on the corporate mafia saga.

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Ekuinas announced on Wednesday it had acquired a controlling stake in homegrown footwear brand XES Shoes.

If you are pun-sensitive, you’d have spotted the obvious joke, but there are a few things that piqued my interest while digging up this deal.

The holding company behind XES is Shellys Marketing Sdn Bhd.

The official press release, carried by major news publications, pitched this as a straightforward control buyout to “strengthen its retail and online commerce presence”.

But take a look at the actual mechanics of the deal — and the structural changes happening at Ekuinas — and you get a nuanced picture.

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The aim here is to just send out shorter briefs than the usual longform this time round, since the mental load of frequent newslettering at high word count can be taxing.

Today’s newsletter takes on one of those funny policies about attracting the global wealthy.

It’s Friday, after all.

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We want to be a hub for family offices.

To entice them, the Malaysian government set up a scheme under the Forest City special financial zone.

Nine applicants have been approved, though the SC didn’t disclose all of their identities.

But we know two of them.

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As a brown journalist, I deal with all kinds of Ks: from racial slurs to government-linked firms. Sheesh.

Today’s short covers Syed Mokhtar Albukhary coming out of the shadows to take a substantial stake in property developer Eco World.

This was seven years in the making when I worked on this and called it as it is in 2019, thanks to sources and a lot of elbow grease and legwork 👇🏾

But it’s always good when a story finally pans out. Talk about taking the long view (pun intended).

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Eco World Development Group yesterday disclosed in a bourse filing that Syed Mokhtar Albukhary had surfaced as a substantial shareholder of the property firm.

The businessman holds an indirect interest of about 30.1% of the company.

But he didn’t buy that stake.

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➜ A conclusion to Monday’s “corporate mafia” story, including the exit from a listed company, with old money involved. Plus a short “mafia” postscript.

➜ Navis went for its maiden Dana Pemacu investee. It didn’t land.

➜ And Nazir Razak’s PE fund is nearing close. After a long stretch on the market, it has pulled in Malaysian institutionals, at least one Philippines investor, and a clutch of Indonesians.

First, former ministers Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and Rafizi Ramli today launched a new party, Bersama (Malay for together).

I’m not going to wade in too much here, since this is already a chunky Sunday newsletter.

Just one thing though, for the lulz I clicked the join tab and, behold, I saw the good ol’ race category.

I know, I know, racial profiling is systemic, structural (even our statistics department uses it), etc.

But for a party vying to be an alternative? I was expecting better, together (pun intended).

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When I hit publish on Monday, the newsletter ended with a question: who was on the other side of Andy Lim’s retreat from GIIB Holdings?

Lim here being one of the names attached to the alleged corporate mafia ring.

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➜ TNG Digital’s first net profit and the maths behind its RM5 billion valuation pitch.

➜ Jho Low files for a Trump pardon again, and the well-worn lobbying playbook behind it.

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I read the recent issue of The Edge and, as always, started with the cover.

It was TNG Digital — our long-suffering fintech — taking what can only be described as a victory lap dressed up as an exclusive interview.

At first glance, you would think TNG Digital had just rewritten the laws of fintech physics.

Chief executive Alan Ni walked the reader through the company’s first full-year net profit: RM103.23 million for 2025, reversing a RM42.48 million loss the year before.

Revenue is up 71.7% to RM707.28 million.

A Bursa listing is in the works, and management is openly fishing for a RM4 billion to RM5 billion “unicorn” valuation at a 40x to 50x price-to-earnings multiple1.

It’s a masterful pre-IPO pitch.

The only problem is that the pitch and the audited financial statements are telling slightly different stories.

Let’s run a reality check on Ni’s biggest claims.

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Drone-services firm Aerodyne is in the final stages of closing a fresh capital raise, people familiar with the matter tell The Malaysianist on condition of anonymity.

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GIIB Holdings, a rubber-parts maker, saw its share price skyrocket on May 4.

By the close that day it was the fifth most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia.

In response to the UMA, GIIB denied knowledge of the share spike but hypothesised that the rally could have been due to news that it would be diversifying into healthcare.

On a typical day, such a company wouldn’t get a mention here. This is a penny stock underpinned by a traditional business: rubber parts.

But for anyone clued into the so-called corporate-mafia saga, the company rings a bell.

There are a few moving parts here, and I’ll work through them properly in next edition edition, including the surfacing of some old money.

But there is a development that’ll make up this morning’s newsy brief.

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Today’s breezy read covers:

➜ A follow-up to yesterday’s Maybank CEO story

➜ Takes on GLICs PNB and KWAP

➜ And a look at the bidders for SME Corp’s RM30 million PE/VC fund.

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Yesterday, I wrote about the internal goings-on in Maybank, so I’ll kickstart with that.

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And if you missed yesterday’s email:

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The Malaysianist readers would know this as early as December 👇

As always, the newsletter owes everything to its sources, most of whom are subscribers.

They’re the reason this tiny, independent one-man operation keeps punching above its weight.

We don’t get things 100% right all the time, but when we do, we really do.

December’s news break and analysis here:

Oh, it also just dawned on me that outgoing PNB chief Abdul Rahman Ahmad is Malaysia’s government-linked yo-yo man: PNB → Sime Darby → PNB → Sime Darby (he returns as chairman of the PNB investee).

Now, that’s a superpower.

Today’s post steps back from the usual GLC/GLIC coverage and takes a stab at one of our so-called tech success stories: Grab.

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Three months before Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto walked onto a stage this month and capped two-wheel ride-hailing commissions at 8% of fares, Grab filed its 2025 annual report.

Buried in the risk disclosures was a single sentence noting that Jakarta was considering a draft decree mandating a flat 10% commission cap, reclassifying drivers as quasi-employees, and protecting their right to unionise.

Prabowo’s eventual 8% cap was even stricter than the draft, down from the roughly 20% Grab used to collect.

Grab dismissed the Indonesian cut as material to earnings. While that may be true, Prabowo’s populist gambit points to a norm in Southeast Asia.

That is to cap the platform’s take, lift the floor on driver pay, and redistribute on the platform’s tab.

And the next country in the firing line is the one Grab can least afford to lose: Malaysia (not Singapore, come on guys).

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Driven by a wave of speculation, UEMS shares rallied nearly 32% in a matter of days, reaching an intraday high of 67 sen before settling at 66.5 sen.

Just like that, over RM809 million was added to the company’s total market value, pushing it to RM3.37 billion.

If you have been covering Corporate Malaysia for as long as I have, you’d chuckle knowing that the note would have caused some comical pandemonium somewhere.

The RHB analyst didn’t specifically name a merger entity or concretely state that an acquisition was going to happen.

I did my 101s and reached out to UEMS and Khazanah for comment but didn’t receive a reply at press time.

But this episode reminded me of three things: a massive geographical advantage that was squandered, a dramatic decade-long reversal of fortunes, and the ghosts of corporate mergers past.

These things, I guess, deserve a revisit. It’s Monday, so why not?

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The bull case for UEMS comes down to one deeply undervalued asset: its 4,516 acres of strategic land in Johor.

With major catalysts like the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) and the Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link nearing completion, land prices in Iskandar Malaysia are surging.

Yet, the stock market is currently pricing UEMS’s Johor land at a mere RM13 per square foot, a steep discount compared to its accounting book value of RM1.36 per share.

To put this into perspective: UEMS has indicated that monetising just 1,000 acres of its Johor land could fetch around RM4 billion.

This means that a mere fraction of their land is worth significantly more than the market value of the entire company today.

As the sovereign wealth fund’s property arm, UEMS was handed the ultimate structural advantage, that is the best land in a booming economic corridor.

But, for years, UEMS has struggled to fully capitalise on this head start, allowing more agile, private developers to run circles around them in their own backyard.

Analysts are now banking on the hope that a recalibrated strategy — or a drastic corporate buyout — will finally unlock what they deem as trapped value.

That is the discrepancy between UEMS’ depressed share price and the multi-billion ringgit reality of its raw land assets.

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