Breaking down an unfashionable story
FashionValet navigates choppy waters after institutional investors exit at a loss.
It’s been a noisy couple of weeks. We have Donald Trump as US president, again. The last time he was president, Najib Razak was the Malaysian PM. Najib golfed, purchased Boeing aircraft and ordered sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional set up shop in Silicon Valley, US.
Wonder if PM Anwar Ibrahim would do something similar? Certainly comical if he did.
But since we’re on the topic of Silicon Valley, today’s all about fashion. And, for added measure, I posted on X yesterday that aside from government-linked investment companies (GLICs) and government-linked companies (GLCs), we now have government-linked startups (GLSs). I kid, of course… maybe?
You’re reading a paid version of The Malaysianist, a newsletter on money and power by writer and journalist Emmanuel Samarathisa.
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I had to rework this newsletter a number of times as this is a developing event. The perils of tackling a topical subject.
E-commerce platform FashionValet has been in the news the past couple of weeks with the latest being the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) claiming it found suspicious transactions made to a company linked to the firm’s founding partner from 2018 until last year.
The anti-graft agency moved in after social media backlash over a parliamentary reply to Puchong MP Yeo Bee Yin, detailing the losses incurred by sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional and Permodalan Nasional Bhd in FashionValet.
Khazanah invested RM27 million while PNB invested RM20 million in 2018 but both sold their stakes for RM3.1 million last year, incurring losses.
There’s a lot of moving parts at press time with the MACC continuing to grill FashionValet founders Vivy Yusof and Fadzarudin Shah Anuar. No charges have been made yet.
Today’s newsletter will zero in on a number of arcs to this story and we’ll take it right from the top, in 2010, when the couple founded the firm.
Tomorrow’s Part 2 includes some comments and musings.