When I read the write-up on the new Sime Darby, I was almost convinced that now we have an almost invincible entity that can prove its mettle in the global scene.
But being the world’s largest oil palm grower, and the largest public listed company in Malaysia in terms of market capitalization, its fortune depends to a large extent on the world demand and resulting price of palm oil.
While the going had never been so good because of the unprecedented growth of the economies of China and India, we should not be too smug about being continuously successful. I believe our economy has yet to feel the total effects of a major downturn in the US economy and a possible collapse of China’s overheated stock market.
According to S Dali’s article in The Star’s Bizweek, ‘New ‘lenders’ of the last resort’, since the beginning of this year, Citigroup’s shares have lost almost 45% of their value, wiping away US$124billion in market capitalization. This goes to show that even the world’s largest bank was vulnerable to market forces, which was due to the damaging effects of sub-prime loans. As a comparison, Sime's market capitalization of Rm66 billion is only US$19 billion, probably equivalent to an amount to be written off their portfolio.
As an example of the unreliable basis of ranking a company based on market capitalization, before the listing of new Sime, IOI was the largest for a number of days. Many people just could not get over the fact that it was bigger than even Maybank!
In fact, I still believe that the merger to create the largest plantation company, which turned out to be the largest company, had something to do with Malay pride. Before that, IOI and KLK were leading plantation companies, well ahead of GLCs like Guthrie and Golden Hope. Now that Sime is on top, does it in any way affect the Bumiputera’s ownership percentage? No way. Not until a Bumiputera becomes the richest man in Malaysia, and that is the new criterion, set by Pak Lah.
Let’s just forget about the biggest for a moment and look at matters at my level, which is basically, ground level. Recently, I was told about an Indian contractor for weeding, who had worked for a local plc for more than 10 years. He was informed by the company that their new policy required a Bumiputera contractor. Later, he was approached by a company official, that he will be the new contractor, but he is willing to let him continue, if he could have a cut of Rm2 per acre. For 3,000 acres, it translates into Rm6,000 per month, for doing nothing. The deal fell through because of the problem of the sub-contractor having to wait for payment from the contractor, which can be dicey, as many government sub-contractors have experienced. If the policy were to have more Bumiputera contractors, then a serious contender willing to put out capital and sweat it out would have been more palatable. Wouldn’t this Indian feel marginalized?
We were approached by a broker about some 2-acre lots for sale at Rm30,000 in Perak. For agricultural land away from the main road, the price seems at least 20% below market rate. Upon closer look at the copy title, it was clearly stated as for ‘dusun’ (or orchard) and ‘tidak boleh di pindahmilik atau dipajakkan’ (cannot be transferred or leased). When we pointed out this fact, the broker said a certain lawyer has been handling such cases without problem. The likely scenario is some Chinese businessmen, who do not mind taking the risk, so long as they can work on the land for a number of years, hoping that none of the landowners would die during the period. Here again, it defeats the original purpose of giving it to those who have no inclination to work on the land.
I am still unhappy over how Southern Bank was ‘forcibly taken over’ by CIMB under the pretext of globalization. Yet the rules were changed to allow more than one negotiating party, after the take-over. The best part was the allegation that the books were cooked just prior to the take-over! I still remember how Tan Sri Tan tried so hard to fight off and many believed SBB’s real motive for taking over Asia General was in fact a poison apple to make the bank unattractive. It is like raping and then suing the victim for spreading VD to him!
Instead of reducing the number of banks with mergers and acquisitions, we now seem to have all kinds of banks to serve different purposes like SMEs and Islamic banking. I happened to be one for having niche banks like Phileo Allied but then again, politics had its way of changing the scenario. More recently, we have ECM Libra taking over Avenue, which was like a python swallowing an elephant.
Meanwhile, it looks like we have to direct our anger at super rich people like Robert Kuok, Lim Kok Thay, Francis Yeoh and Ananda Krishnan (not necessarily in order of wealth) for taking up a large part of non-Bumiputera shareholdings which made the NEP a never ending policy. But to be realistic, I am stuck with shares in delisted companies like Mbf Corp, Crimson, Datuk Keramat, Metroplex and so on, which according to the government’s criterion (nominal value instead of market value), I am fairly rich!
If Pak Lah does not wish to listen to a nobody like me, at least listen to experts in relevant fields like Dr. Lim Teck Ghee on share ownership and Wong Chin Huat on the electoral system.
No comments:
Post a Comment