Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, recently described by his ex-employees as a bad and heartless man, had an interesting angle to the plantations merger. He opines that it is first and foremost a land development merger, where the combined land resources of the 3 companies will create a massive land bank which can be sold bit by bit to developers or developed by the conglomerates themselves for massive profits, while they shift their plantation operations to places where land is cheaper - read: Indonesia.

Tan Sri Khalid was speaking at a forum where the effects of this merger was described as being detrimental to the NEP (not a big fan of this vaguely articulated angle), and destined to be problematic due to chronic Malaysian mismanagement.

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Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin highlighted a rumour that Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan of Hong Leong fame may acquire a big stake in Kencana Petroleum Bhd.

This was the first I had learnt of Kencana, a relatively new oil and gas company set up, owned and run by Dtk Mokhzani (more famously bin) Mahathir - interesting of course because it may be a rival to Kamaluddin (more famously bin) Abdullah’s Scomi Group of oil and gas companies.

Dynastic bigwigs fighting on multiple levels? We’ll see.

Tags: Economy, Government Appropriation, Malaysian Politics //