It is the season for forgiveness again, whether it be during Islam, Christian or Buddhist festive season.

So forgive and forget. Easy isn’t it? To many, especially bankers, they are used to writing off of things and start afresh. Easiest thing to do with the least least white hairs.

If you lose RM 1.5 billion, but could recover this loss through another means e.g. through the additional RM 1.5 billion increase in funds and price from a FRESH and NEW investor, why bother about the earlier “loss” then? The new invester “sucker” has already made good for you. So any incoming new investor e.g. them Mid-East Arabs, should not be too ready with their check-books.

Further, crooks know how to cover their tracks and to make things difficult for any potential pursuers. So guilty they may appear to be but they may have made any potential suits against them very difficult to succeed. But we should try especially when it involves alot of hard earned public money.

But what about the regulators? The legal suits may reveal considerable shortcomings in their regulatory work. An example would be their poor performances before and during the 1997 Asian Financial crisis. Their lax supervision led to many financial institutions collapsing and needing rescue due to poor governance but has the regulators ever been held to account? Remember Noh Mohd and the RM 30 billion plus losses? What is the real story behind this? It would seem you get REWARDED for fiascos. Tan Sriships are the norm too. Its “our culture” too to hide embarrasment.

Also, many errant “tycoons” have never been held to account for their business failures either caused by themselves or because of market conditions. For example. Many cronies saw their companies collapsing during the recent financial crisis costing investors and the general public billions of ringgit.

Have they been asked to account for their many dubious deeds? NO. Have they remained rich and well off all this while? YES.

Many have ensured that even if the worst happened to their companies, they have already taken care of their OWN and private lives to live out their lives in comfort. I need not have to explain how they milked their companies high and dry and in some cases with impunity. So they remain well off and leading luxurious and comfortable lives in comfort and in low profile.

Many do not seek publicity as it would attract new queries as to how they obtained their wealth. They do not need to be listed in the top 40 richest men but if you include them in, then the list could see many new low profile, but filthy rich, names.

Shouldn’t Tun Daim’s name be there, being the richest of the rich? And his long list of cronies? You think Tajudiin Ramli or Rashid Hussein (personally, or through their families) are in the poor house? See for example, this article in the Star Biz 20th December 2007:

”
Wan Azmi lists firms in London

Sweetener maker PureCircle latest to float on AIM

By IZWAN IDRIS

PETALING JAYA: Although Land & General Bhd (L&G) founder Tan Sri Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah has kept a local profile in recent years, he remains the shrewd investor with a string of successful listings overseas.

The most recent was PureCircle Ltd, a maker of plant-based sweetener, which went public last week on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Early backers of the biotech firm, including the Kelantan-born Wan Azmi, sold 14.28 million shares to the public at 170p each to raise £23.4mil (RM157mil) for expansion.

According to the listing document, PureCircle was founded in Malaysia in 2002 and is headed by managing director and co-founder Magomet Malsagov.

It also showed Halfmoon Bay Enterprises Ltd as the company’s second biggest shareholder with a 10.3% stake post-listing.

Halfmoon Bay is Wan Azmi’s family investment vehicle. The same firm used to own shares in Amway (M) Holdings Bhd when Wan Azmi was the company’s chairman.

Wan Azmi withdrew from the local corporate scene after the collapse of his flagship company, Land & General Bhd (L&G), due to the Asian financial crisis in 1997. His other known listed firm, Rohas-Euco Industries Bhd, is on the verge of being taken private by Temasek Team Sdn Bhd, a company that Wan Azmi, his wife and associates have set up for the exercise.

Wan Azmi, 57, has maintained a 6% stake in L&G.

While he stayed in the background at home, the protege of former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin had stepped up his international ventures in recent years.

At least three companies he is involved in, including PureCircle, were floated in London over the past two years.

They include Steppe Cement Ltd, in which Halfmoon Bay and another of Wan Azmi’s private entities are among the major shareholders.

Steppe Cement, which was floated on AIM in September 2005, has several cement manufacturing complexes in Kazakhstan.

In an interview with StarBiz in October this year, Steppe Cement chief executive office Javier Del Ser Perez said that he, Wan Azmi and Malaysia-based investor David Crichton-Watt each owned a third of the shares in the cement maker.

The company is worth £286mil (RM1.9bil) at the current market price of 251p.

Wan Azmi and Perez also have stakes in a Kazakh real estate company known as Chagala Group Ltd, which was listed on the London Stock Exchange’s main market in February this year.

Wan Azmi and Crichton-Watt have been business partners for over a decade.

In the StarBiz interview, Perez said both Wan Azmi and Crichton-Watt were invited by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1995 to look at opportunities in the then fledgling nation.

Meanwhile, PureCircle is said to the world’s biggest producer of Redaudioside-A (Reb-A), a natural high-intensity sweetening extracted from the Stevia plant.

The company’s stock hit a high of 186.5p on its first day of trading, but has since drifted back to near the IPO level. At Tuesday’s closing price of 178.5p, the company had a market value of £232.6mil.

”

Ah so. Many remained with oodles and oodles of money despite their (public) companies going bankrupt. They and their families remained extremely well off. Would you not say from the article that Wan Azmi could be in the list of top 40 richest men? But he’s not there!!! So too the many similar and well known names. Tun Daim?

So how many Bumiputras should be on the list but are not? And how do they account for their wealth when many of the shareholders of their failed companies have to WRITE OFF their personal investments? Does any regulatory agency wish to find out?

But it is well known fact that many of these low profile super-duper rich have hidden their assets through nominees and front men and women They remained well hidden in the background, unaccounted for, apparently “unconnected”, BUT it is they who call the shots. Our law says identify the “ultimate shareholder(s)” BUT it does NOT say IDENTIFY WHO CALLS THE SHOTS, i.e. WHO really and actually controls?

So what about EPF? Who ultimately calls the shots? And WHY???

An additional RM 1.5 billion could translate into an additional 0.25% return for each contributor. Could contributors then sue the EPF board for the RM 1.5 billion that they have forgone?

Accountabilty, transparancy, integrity. Not mere empty slogans of “Cemerlang, Terbilang, Gembilang”.