You’re reading The Malaysianist, a newsletter on money and power. Fuel up with a monthly, annual or founding member plan.
P.S. The founding member tier doesn’t have a ceiling; you can go as high as you want — it’s the ultimate supporter badge that comes with an annual report.
It’ll also grant you access to Brainjam with bangers such as this 👇🏽
And, yes, you can upgrade subscription tiers at any time.
Mulling a group purchase for family, friends and colleagues? I’ve got you. Group subscriptions come with discounts, too.
I’m working backwards today, starting with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s claim that Serba Dinamik founder Abdul Karim Abdullah is on Interpol’s Red Notice.
For Malaysian corporate watchers, the nearly RM5 billion in debt that Karim and Serba Dinamik torched remains one of Corporate Malaysia’s biggest implosions of the past five years.
And, at least for Karim, this saga remains fresh and unresolved.
First, a detour. I know some of you are still in awe of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s claim that he’ll invest US$50 billion here.
I wrote a little about him on Sunday, and the next Hype Autopsy will take him apart in more detail.
For two Tuesdays now (yesterday and last week), Anwar has been defending KWAP’s eFishery misadventure in the Dewan Rakyat.
The PM defended the civil servants’ pension fund and its process as “very orderly and tight”.
He clarified that KWAP followed “the international trend” and leaned on SoftBank.
Why? On the assumption that Son’s reputation as an investor wouldn’t be so careless.
Despite blaming the Japanese investor, Anwar still wants his money.
Yesterday the PM, after saying his notes went missing, played down the RM163.4 million eFishery loss as just “2.4% of their total investment” alongside Temasek, Sequoia and SoftBank.
It was a mangled defence.
KWAP held a 2.51% minority stake in eFishery, while RM163.4 million is roughly 2% of KWAP’s RM8 billion annual profit and under 0.1% of its RM180 billion fund.
Even so, for SoftBank and Temasek, whom he was ready to blame, the eFishery wipeout was a rounding error, well under 0.05% of their portfolios.
This is a circus, and that’s me putting it mildly.
The past two weeks have been about the PM batting away criticism on Corporate Malaysia in the Dewan Rakyat. So I have some material to work with.
First, Karim’s Interpol notice.