The art of reinvention
A May update.
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 content, they’ll do it, and they’ll know how to find their way to it.
So I’m setting that wisdom aside (for now) and keeping to the usual cadence and tone of the monthly recap.
Sometimes I do go out hobnobbing, just to keep up the pretence that I have a social life.
In all seriousness, this was an invitation I couldn’t pass up, and it turned out to be a good meet.
At some point a particular person showed up. This one had a calm aura and had no trouble mingling, someone you would want at a party.
During our chats, they turned to the subject of the media.
Now, when someone outside the business talks about the media, it’s usually the same script: “biased”, “stupid”, “they don’t understand,” “what’s so hard about writing?”
My standard reply is, “By the way, do you subscribe to any media?”, which tends to generate some hilarious retorts.
Occasionally, though, I catch an outsider dropping inside talk, and that’s when I start paying attention.
Why? Because, frankly, you shouldn’t care this much about the media if you’re not in the business.
This person was suddenly advocating for a certain tycoon-run newsroom, which I found bizarre, because that place is a cesspool that never mattered much even by the low standards of Malaysian journalism.
Then they moved on to namedropping a number of my former bosses, as well as hired guns in the industry.
This was clearly turning out to be an extraordinary discussion by any standards.
The mystery guest then excused themselves early, but I was curious.
So I asked the host, and began triangulating who this person actually was.
And lo and behold: sitting in our midst was someone the MACC had arrested just close to a decade ago over a scandal at a government agency.
Suddenly everything clicked, including the casual knowledge of how enforcement agents break your phone to get at its contents, and how one files for criminal defamation.
When it all came together, I just laughed. Of everyone in that room, this was the person of interest.
And none of us — myself included — recognised the guest.
The world works in interesting ways.
Was it unfair that this person gets to live a normal life despite past shenanigans , and a major one, at that?
But after covering this space for a while, making a living tracking down corporates and airing the funny and dirty laundry, I have to concede that sometimes the coin flips the other way.
That depending on who you are and how you position yourself, you can reinvent yourself and breathe the same air as everyone else.
Strange? That’s just how it is. Cynically, that’s what keeps me in business, too.
🚀 The Johor assembly has been dissolved as I write this, with state elections called early. It’ll certainly be a barometer for the national polls, which everyone’s anticipating to be soon.
Now, on to the best-ofs for May.
As always, here are the best-performing stories for the month, pieces that drew around 3,000 views and converted at least 10 paying subscribers (monthly/annual/founding) each:
Inside Khazanah’s trapped property arm. How a takeover rumour exposed the way Khazanah’s UEM Sunrise squandered the best land in the country while Eco World ran circles around it.
Maybank’s CEO poser. An inside take on group CEO Khairussaleh Ramli and succession rumours.
The shortlist wars. The names jostling for the top jobs at Maybank, PNB and KWAP, plus the five hopefuls shortlisted for SME Corp’s RM30 million fund.
Aerodyne hits turbulence. The drone “champion” is shrinking, with roughly RM200 million of government-linked money — KWAP’s second markdown after eFishery — riding on a raise sources call a cry for help.
Old money, the close and a no. Three deals: who was buying as Andy Lim (the man at the centre of the corporate mafia saga) exited GIIB, why Navis walked from a tiger-milk-mushroom bet, and Nazir Razak’s PE fund inching toward a close.
Syed Mokhtar’s finally out of the woodwork. Seven years after I mapped the proxy network, the tycoon surfaced as Eco World’s substantial shareholder with every share of his 30% block pledged to the banks.
The bumiputera relay race (and who actually wins). Ekuinas’ budget-shoe buyout used government money to cash out foreign minorities, exposing a 50-year failure to grow bumiputera industrialists.
Who works the shadows. Tracing the corporate mafia leaks back to their political factional roots, and the offer to launder a “scoop” through foreign media that I turned down.
Pulling the plug on the Fusionex era. The government finally hands the DFTZ services platform to a new operator in a Bursa-listed company, but a number of crucial details remain in the dark.