From BMF to 1MDB

From BMF to 1MDB
Author: Teh Yik Koon
Publisher: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2022-12-06
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 967246472X

Bumiputra Malaysia Finance Limited (BMF) was a financial institution set up in Hong Kong at the end of 1977. Its parent bank was the Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad (BBMB) which was established in 1965 with public funds to promote Bumiputera participation in the economy. In the 1980s, during Mahathir Mohamad’s administration, BMF lost M$2.5 billion, allegedly due to fraud and corruption, which could not be accounted for until today. After about 35 years, another similar colossal financial scandal was alleged to have taken place through 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). 1MDB is a development company set up by the Malaysian government in 2009, during Najib Razak’s administration, with a focus on the long-term economic development of the country. However, within about eight years, it has run up more than RM42 billion in debts and key figures are tainted by allegations of abuse of power and corruption. It is therefore timely to revisit the BMF case, to discuss and compare it with the present interest in the 1MDB case. This book will highlight the alleged fraud and corruption that took place in both cases – tracing the money trail, the problematic structure of both organisations, the political and social structure and environment in Malaysia during the occurrence of both scandals, and finally compare both cases, to provide an analysis of the social and political progress of Malaysia in the last three decades.

Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes

Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes
Author: Thomas B. Pepinsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2009-08-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521767938

Thomas B. Pepinsky examines how coalitions and capital mobility in Indonesia and Malaysia shape the links between financial crises and regime change.

Minister of Finance Incorporated

Minister of Finance Incorporated
Author: Edmund Terence Gomez
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-07-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811048975

This is a study of Malaysia’s new political economy, with a focus on ownership and control of the corporate sector. It offers a pioneering assessment of government-linked investment companies (GLICs), a type of state-owned institution that has long prevailed in the corporate sector but has not been analysed. Malaysia’s history of government-business ties is unique, while the nature of the nexuses between the state and the corporate sector has undergone major transitions. Corporate power has shifted from the hands of foreign firms to the state to the ruling party, and well-connected businessmen, and back to the state. Corporate wealth is now heavily situated in the leading publicly-listed government-linked companies (GLCs), controlled through block shareholdings by a mere seven GLICs under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Finance. To indicate why these GLICs are important actors in Corporate Malaysia, this study provides a deep assessment of their ownership and control of Bursa Malaysia’s top 100 publicly-listed enterprises.

LIM KIT SIANG: Defying the Odds

LIM KIT SIANG: Defying the Odds
Author: Ooi Kee Beng
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2015-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 981467737X

Lim Kit Siang has been fighting on the forefront of Malaysian politics since the late 1960s. Uncompromising in his mission to pull the country away from systemic race-based politics and all the ills that stem from the sustainment of these over five decades, he was jailed twice without trial. His persistence saw him and his followers well placed to participate in the surprising resurgence of political opposition over the last 15 years. Since 2008, his Democratic Action Party has grown greatly in strength, and together with its allies, has been able to seriously challenge the ruling coalition. This book captures the spirit of Lim’s life, and describes the grim yet gratifying journey that his refusal to compromise on his political convictions forced him to take. It is the tale of a man who felt he had no choice, and consequently, whose impact on his country’s history is great. In that sense, his story is also a narrative about a country that has yet to fulfil the great promise that it holds

The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism

The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism
Author: Peter Searle
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1998-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780824820534

Is capitalism in Southeast Asia 'real' or a 'chimera', that is, some Southeast Asian derivative of capitalism that ultimately will not be sustainable? Malaysia, where an intimate relationship has been forged between the state and business in an effort to create Malay capitalists, presents an interesting and illuminating case in the debate. In this work Peter Searle identifies the complex interaction between the state, the dominant political party (UMNO) and business as the source of dynamism or defeat in the development of Malay capitalists. He also challenges a common view that Chinese business groups are completely different from Malay business groups. Overall this study argues against drawing sharp contrasts between dependency and self-reliance, between state and capital, and between rent-seekers and true 'productive' capitalists. For it is from that amalgam of categories and groups the study concludes that a form of capitalism is emerging in Malaysia which is nonetheless remarkably dynamic and resilient, despite its unorthodox origins.

Malaysia's Political Economy

Malaysia's Political Economy
Author: Edmund Terence Gomez
Publisher: CUP Archive
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1999-08-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521663687

This book uses the concepts of rent and rent-seeking to study Malaysian political economy.

Behind the Myth (RLE Modern East and South East Asia)

Behind the Myth (RLE Modern East and South East Asia)
Author: James Clad
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2020-09-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000156079

For most people, the ‘economic miracle’ in Asia means Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese dynamism. Less is known about Southeast Asia, where economies grouping over 300 million people have clocked astounding growth rates since 1970. But fast growth is only part of the story. In this book, first published in 1989, James Clad offers an inside look at Malaysia’s ‘kampong commerce’, at oil-rich Brunei’s ‘Shell-fare state’ and at Thailand’s business blend of bureaucrats, generals and local Chinese. The author opens the window on business politics in Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as explaining how Singapore, although a notable exception to economic passivity and business corruption, still remains hostage to geography and overseas Chinese insecurity. Apart from these country surveys, this book also analyses the constants of South East Asia and Hong Kong, including commodity earnings and the financial power of the Chinese. It describes claims of ‘intellectual dishonesty’ at Asia’s largest development bank and counters fashionable optimism that weak regional institutions will evolve into an Asian common market. Yet Clad also describes South East Asia’s impressive achievements, including an account of how their new multinational companies are feeling their way into the world economy.

Privatizing Malaysia

Privatizing Malaysia
Author: Jomo K S
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2019-06-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000308197

In this first critical, multidisciplinary assessment of recent privatization in a developing country, the contributors offer valuable lessons for the comparative study of denationalization and related public policy options. After an introductory survey, the volume presents broad perspectives on the context, formulation, and adjustment of privatization policy in Malaysia. The contributors review the distributional implications of specific privatizations for the public interest as well as for consumer and employee welfare. The book concludes with an examination of the economic, political, and cultural impacts of the privatization of physical infrastructure, telecommunications, and television programming.