Rare insight into Syed Mokhtar

Listed as the seventh richest Malaysian with a net worth of US$3.3 billion, not much is known from the media-shy Syed Mokhtar.

Syed Mokhtar Albukhary : A Biography

Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, A Biography
Author: Premilla Mohanlall
Publisher: PVM Communications

MY first meeting with tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary went off in a rather unusual way. The year was 2004 and he had wanted to meet someone from The Star to make known his views over his fight with another tycoon, the late Tan Sri Nasimuddin SM Amin, over DRB-Hicom.

Syed Mokhtar felt the media favoured the Naza Group boss over him and he wanted to give his side of the story.

Both were battling over a strategic 15.8% block of shares in DRB-Hicom held by three parties, including the estate of the late Tan Sri Yahaya Ahmad, and the rivalry was billed as the “Fight of The Big Boys.”

The series of newspaper headlines had forced the reclusive Syed Mokhtar to come out and talk to this writer to put the record straight.

Our meeting at the business centre of a five-star hotel at Jalan Sultan Ismail was fixed at 9pm but he only turned up near midnight. Although he was dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt, I noticed that he only wore sandals. He was over two hours late.

His aides had warned me that he would probably be “waylaid” on the way there by businessmen and politicians, most of whom would ask for business deals or favours.

To avoid such disruptions, he shuttles between his house at affluent Bukit Tunku – which he bought since he became a millionaire bachelor – and the hotel to meet his associates and contacts. The other meeting point is the Islamic Arts Museum near the National Mosque.

The other rather unusual meeting spot is an Indian restaurant at Jalan Pahang. To this day, he carries with him a tumbler of tea, made by a particular waiter, from the eatery.

“If (the late Tan Sri) Loh Boon Siew can meet his friends at a coffeeshop every morning, I see no reason why I cannot enjoy my teh tarik at the shop, saya pun tong san mali, like him,” he told me, referring to Boon Siew’s ancestral roots from China. Syed Mokktar’s ancestral roots, on the other hand, can be traced to Central Asia.

By the time we finished our conversations, it was close to 2am. As I put down my pen and was about to close my note book, he suddenly told me that our discussions were entirely off the record and he was not to be quoted.

The publicity-shy businessman has never been at ease with journalists but I wasn’t going to allow Syed Mokhtar to have his way. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that if that were so, I would have wasted my entire evening with him, and whether he liked it or not, I was going to put him on record.

I must have made an impression on him because as we got to know each other better, he was prepared to share his private thoughts with me regularly – but still never on record.

But the media is still biting on Syed Mokhtar and, in some ways, he is to be blamed as he has never made himself available to journalists, preferring to let his aides do the talking. In fact, bankers also complain that he never meets them!

Interestingly enough, a whole chapter is devoted to his dealings with the media in his biography that has just hit the bookstores written by Premilla Mohanlall, a writer and a public relations practitioner.

“I wonder why I get bad press when others who have abused the system for personal gains have not been subjected to such media scrutiny. Perhaps it is time to come out and defend myself,” he said in the book.

The 180-page book is very readable, starting with his childhood days in a village attap house with no piped water and electricity, where the toilet was a pit latrine. It traces Syed Mokhtar’s first experience of doing business under his cattle trader father in Alor Star. His father migrated to Kedah from the Afghan region of Central Asia via India and Thailand.

The book gives a rare peek into his family life and how the family’s financial constraints forced Syed Mokhtar to stop schooling after Form Five, while his siblings were able to continue. There was also his early growing-up years with a soldier uncle in Johor Baru.

He takes pride calling himself a businessman with no diplomas, and his ability to speak the layman’s language is obvious in the book. Much space is dedicated to his early days as a travelling salesman, when he had to sleep in the lorries and on bug-infested beds in cheap hotels.

The point that Syed Mokhtar seems to want to tell his readers is that he did not get his wealth on a silver platter. While the affirmative action of the New Economic Policy had helped him, he worked hard and fought hard. He was not the type who cashed out after getting the pink forms.

In short, he went through the good and bad times, like many well-tested businessmen. The 1997 financial crisis saw his assets shrank from RM3bil to RM600mil.

“Eighty per cent of my market capitalisation was wiped out. There was a lot of pain and hardship. Many people thought I would pack up and leave. I am a fighter, with a strong will to survive.

“I lost countless nights of sleep, I lost hair, but I did not lose sight of one thing: my responsibility to safeguard strategic bumiputra assets and to protect the interests of my staff.”

Today, he has 110,000 staff under his payroll and indirectly about 250,000 other Malaysians, particularly vendors, since he acquired Proton this year.

Syed Mokhtar’s close ties with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is well documented but in this book, Syed Mokhtar spoke vividly, if not humorously, of their first encounter.

It was Thursday, Jan 16, 1997 and the time was 2.30pm – Syed Mokhtar entered the office of the former Prime Minister.

“I greeted him with a salam and he stood before me, with his hands folded across the chest. He did not wave for me to take a seat when he sat down. I was sweating, and decided to sit down to present the documents I had prepared to explain all my businesses in Kedah, Kuala Lumpur and Johor.

“It included building plans for a new project in Alor Star, a sprawling development with a mosque and a health and welfare facilities for the poor as well as an international university for disadvantaged communities around the world.

“The Prime Minister listened carefully, without saying a word. By the time I was done, it was an hour and ten minutes. Still, not a word. I left the documents on his desk and took leave.”

Not long later, Syed Mokthar, who was still asleep, received a call from Dr Mahathir himself with a simple message: “Your matter in Kedah is settled.” That is of course vintage Dr Mahathir, the man who has no time for small talk and offered few words.

Apart from his numerous business ventures, Syed Mokhtar also writes in detail of his numerous charitable works.

Almost every year, his Albukhary Foundation hosts two iftar or fast-breaking dinners for over 3,000 needy people. The foundation currently has a few flagship projects, including the Islamic Arts Museum built in 1998.

In 2001, the foundation launched the Albukhry Tuition Programme to help the underachieving rural school children pass their final high school examination. At the end of the programme, nine years later, about 80,000 students from 500 schools had benefited from these remedial classes.

His foundation has also extended help to survivors of earthquakes in China, Pakistan and Iran, and the tsunami in Indonesia. It has also built an AIDS hospital in Uganda and a girls’ school in Nepal as well as helped support the Sarajevo Science and Technology centre.

An interesting chapter is on his role as a family man. Syed Mokhtar has never touched on his private life in any interview, which has been rare, in any case.

The father of seven children, between the ages of two and 18, revealed how his typical meetings start at 10pm and finish at 3am “and is held seven days a week and has been a routine for more than 20 years.”

“Fortunately, my wife comes from a business family and understands this. Initially, I had to explain the arrangement to her, and she accepted it. Except for family holidays, in our 20 years of marriage, I don’t think I have spent many evenings at home after 10pm,” he wrote.

Syed Mokhtar married in 1992 at the age of 41 to then 24-year-old Sharifah Zarah. There are also rare pictures of his family in the book.

Although the book is, no doubt, a public relations exercise, the right questions have been posed by the writer, including the public’s perception of his many acquisitions and the common criticism that he has more than he can chew.

He also answered the issue of the shareholding structure of his companies that could not be traced to him, acknowledging “it is an old habit that has to change.”

Syed Mokhtar hasn’t changed much. He is rarely seen in public functions. He is still more at ease in short-sleeved shirts and sandals. The billionaire now travels on a private jet but in town, he still drives around in his old Proton Perdana. - By WONG CHUN WAI

November 14, 2012 by allMalaysia

Retrieved by: http://allmalaysia.info/2012/11/14/rare-insight-into-syed-mokhtar/

Umno MP raps government for Syed Mokhtar’s ‘monopoly’

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — A senior Umno backbencher today lashed out at the Najib administration for allowing tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary to monopolise all forms of government procurement, saying this was unfair to smaller business players.

Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) said the government must be aware of the public’s anger over Syed Mokhtar’s (picture)“monopoly” of businesses in the “sky, land and sea”.

“Whatever there is in this world, he wants to make a business of it. In the sea, he does business. On land, he does business. In the air, he does business as well.

“If he could do business in the grave, I think he would do it too,” the outspoken Sabah MP grumbled.

“This is the problem here. He has taken on the import business... he takes Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB), MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) he wants... he wants to take everything.

“Even Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), he wants... and he wants Johor water too,” Bung Mokhtar continued.

This is not the first time that the Umno MP has complained about Syed Mokhtar’s “monopoly”.

During the June sitting of Parliament, Bung Mokhtar had reportedly accused the government of favouring Syed Mokhtar in all business areas, including the smaller tenders, saying the logistics tycoon is “like a king”.

At the time, the MP was complaining about the selection of Syed Mokhtar’s Seaport Terminal to take the Finance Ministry-owned Penang Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) private.

“Syed Mokhtar is like a king with so many banks backing him,” the Barisan Nasional (BN) backbenchers deputy chief had said at the time, referring to the former’s empire which has a reported total debt of RM34.3 billion, or about 10 per cent of all local corporate bonds.

The Sabah Umno leader asked, “Why must we make one man king?” and suggested instead that “we have more princes as Sri Gading and myself are ready,” referring to his parliamentary colleague Datuk Mohamad Aziz.

The surging debt of companies under Malaysia’s richest Bumiputera has raised fears of a repeat of the financial system’s collapse in 1998 that had then been spurred by the failure of Renong Bhd to fulfil its liabilities.

“I feel compelled to speak on this issue... of government-linked companies (GLCs)... and I see a tendency for ministries or certain agencies to give a larger monopoly to one single company and I think this is unfair to other firms,” Bung Mokhtar told the lower House.

“And I see a tendency for these GLCs, which are mammoth firms, big firms, but when there is an open tender, they want to bid as well.”

He said GLCs should be barred from bidding for smaller tenders, saying they should reserve their involvement to larger government projects instead.

“And why is it, when it come to mega projects, it is always Syed Mokhtar?” he said.

Bung Mokhtar pointed out that other Malay entrepreneurs were also trying hard to emulate the business tycoon, who is listed by Forbes as Malaysia’s seventh richest person.

“So I would like to put on record that I object to this... do not rely on one person to monopolise all forms of businesses in our country... and even more worrying is when this single player leads to the destruction of the country’s economy,” he said.

BY CLARA CHOOI
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
OCTOBER 23, 2012
LATEST UPDATE: OCTOBER 24, 2012 03:02 PM

Retrieved from: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/umno-mp-raps-government-for-syed-mokhtars-monopoly/

Syed Mokhtar: Malays and Chinese abused NEP

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 20): The New Economic Policy (NEP), Malaysia's bumiputera affirmative action scheme, has been abused by Malays and Chinese seeking easy leverage, billionaire Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary claims in a recently published biography.

"Many Malays are to blame and so are many Chinese. Instead of retaining what was allocated to them as bumiputras, they cashed out or became brokers. 

 

"They were enticed by the Chinese, who offered all kinds of inducements," Syed Mokthar said in recounting his experiences as a young entrepreneur in the early 1960s.

 

"In my opinion, bumiputra allocations should not be sold since they were awarded to us to achieve the NEP's 30% corporate equity target", he added.

 

In the biography, Syed Mohktar points out that Malaysia's richest men somehow trace their wealth back to political patronage and the NEP, which was launched in 1971 to grow bumiputra participation in the economy.

 

By the billionaire's own admission, he was a poor Kedah-born kampung boy who seized opportunities presented by the NEP and post-Independence Malaysia's move toward an industrialised economy.

 

"The NEM is about distributing the nation's wealth more fairly. The sensitive part of it is the 30% allocation of corporate wealth to bumiputra who make up about 60% of the population. 

 

"But there is still the larger 70% that is available to the Chinese, Indians and foreigners," the low profile 60-year-old tells author Premilla Mohanlall.

 

The biography, published by pVm Communications, paints a picture of a simple man who still drives around in his old Proton Perdana despite being ranked by Forbes as the seventh richest man in Malaysia with a net worth of US$3.3 billion.

 

Friends in high places

 

From his early days dabbling in transportation and rice trading, Syed Mokthar's business empire swiftly expanded to shoe and garment manufacturing, shipping, property development and agriculture. 

 

But it was in his rice trading days that Syed Mokthar made friends who would eventually take on influential positions. They include deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and former Perlis mentri besar Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim.

 

In the 1990s, Syed Mokhtar became an active corporate investor buying into public listed companies and acquiring state-owned enterprises from the government's privatisation policy.

 

By 30, Syed Mokthar became a millionaire.

 

Though he was well connected to government officials, Syed Mokthar only met the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the first time in 1997. 

 

He described the encounter as the "most unnerving 70 minutes of my life" as he had to explain all his business interests to Mahathir. 

 

This came amid incessant rumblings that Syed Mokthar's success was due to his friendship with Muhyiddin, who was then the menteri besar of Johor.

 

Eventually, Syed Mokthar won over Mahathir and the two men began what the biography described as a "mentor-mentee" relationship that would extend beyond Mahathir's days in office.

 

But Syed Mokthar found himself distanced from the leadership when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Mahathir as prime minister, prompting Syed Mokthar to venture to the Middle East for opportunities.

 

Syed Mokthar's journey was certainly not smooth-sailing. He was badly hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997 which wiped out RM2.4 billion in value from his assets to about RM600 million. 

 

After the crisis, Syed Mokthar bounced back and entered the big league with his acquisition of Malaysia Mining Corp Bhd (now MMC Corp Bhd), Perbadanan Nasional Bhd or PERNAS (now Tradewinds Corp Bhd) and DRB-Hicom Bhd in the 2000s. 

 

In recent times, Syed Mokthar has been criticised for controlling too many strategic sectors including several ports, postal operator Pos Malaysia Bhd, national carmaker Proton Holdings Bhd and rice trading firm Padiberas Nasional Berhad (BERNAS).

 

No Ali Baba deals

 

The third of seven children, Syed Mokhtar's first taste of business was helping out in his father's cattle trading business until the venture fell on hard times. 

 

Syed Mokhtar dropped out of school just months away from completing Form Five. 

 

He started a lorry transportation company called Syarikat Kenderaan Sentosa in 1972, which was awarded four lorry licenses under the bumiputra quota. 

 

Syed Mokthar claims that he turned down offers by Chinese businessmen to enter into a "Ali Baba" arrangement, where a Malay takes up bumiputra equity allocated to them but trades it off to a Chinese to run the business. 

 

Later in life, Syed Mokthar would come to realise that there were politicians and decision-makers who were happy to be "pawns" in Ali Baba arrangements, overlooking qualified bumiputra businessmen. 

 

"Even though I had the experience and the money, people in power deliberately chose to ignore this. They did not want to give me or other bumiputra businessmen the opportunity to prove ourselves. 

 

"Instead, they decided that there were no qualified bumiputeras and recommended non bumiputeras to take over government entities established to realise NEP targets. This was sad and disappointing," Syed Mokthar said.

by Chua Sue-Ann

Read more: http://www.fz.com/content/syed-mokhtar-malays-and-chinese-abused-nep

Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary - Tycoon lives by a moral compass

A biography on Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary sheds some light into the life and personality of the most-talked-about yet little-known corporate titan in Malaysia.

AN anecdote dating back to one of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary's early forays in business offers a revealing insight into what drives Malaysia's leading bumiputra corporate titan.

In 1971, Syed Mokhtar, who was then 20 years old and had dropped out of school because his parents were too poor to pay for his education, suddenly found success and was raking in tidy profits as a meat trader.

The impressionable young man got carried away. He developed a taste for the night life in Kuala Lumpur and bought a fuel-injected Volvo which he used for weekend joy rides to Penang and Thailand.

But things ground to a halt when Syed Mokhtar could not pay his car loan instalments, and he had an epiphany.

“I think it has to do with keinsafan or realisation of where you come from, and where you are going,” he says in his recently released biography, Syed Mokhtar Albukhary: A Biography.

“It was a difficult and painful period for both me and my family. But I found myself through the realisation of my religious values and family support,” he adds, describing the period as his “lost days”.

From a Malay perspective, the values that would anchor his life and business from that point onwards form a major theme of the book.

Granted, the biography mainly tells one side of Syed Mokhtar's story, namely his. But it does come across as an earnest attempt by the reclusive tycoon to explain his motivation amid long-standing gossip and criticism over his extensive business holdings.

The book is timely, with the Malay entrepreneurial community who have benefited from the New Economic Policy (NEP) increasingly under the spotlight.

There is anger towards the irresponsible among them who betray the interests of the bumiputra typified by fat cats who win contracts due to their connections and who then sell out for quick profits, at the expense of other more qualified Malays.

Syed Mokhtar's biography argues his case as someone who stands apart due to his core values.

Written by Premilla Mohanlall and published by pVm Communications Sdn Bhd, the book charts his rise from his humble beginnings and draws from interviews with Syed Mokhtar as well as his family, friends and peers.

Providing a rare glimpse into the life story of a little-known but much talked about personality, the book has already sold 20,000 copies and is going into a second printing of another 20,000 copies. A Bahasa Malaysia version will be available tomorrow.

The son of a cattle-trader, Syed Mokhtar was born in 1951 into the close-knit Bukhary family whose forebears assimilated into the Malay community after migrating from Central Asia.

Villagers in the ethnically-mixed Kampung Hutan Keriang in Alor Setar, Kedah, where he grew up, helped each other in times of need regardless of race or religion, teaching him the importance of helping the needy.

A grounding in traditional Islamic and Malay values such as humility and integrity is attributed to his mother Sharifah Rokiah Syed Mohamed Rahmat, who serves as Syed Mokhtar's moral compass.

A six-year stint in Johor Baru, where he lived during his childhood with an uncle, left Syed Mokhtar with an admiration for the modern and progressive outlook of the Johor Malays.

Sense of responsibility

The values help to explain the person he is today, and one particular belief is often cited as guiding most of his business decisions a sense of responsibility.

“When I started my lorry business, I was a young man with little money. I could afford to buy only two lorries, but was issued four permits under the bumiputra quota.

“Immediately, Chinese towkays offered to buy the two extra licences. I refused. I did not want to be a broker,” says Syed Mokhtar. He is blunt about his dislike of those who abused the NEP.

“Many Malays are to blame, and so are many Chinese. Instead of retaining what was allocated to them as bumiputras, they cashed out, or became brokers.”

During the 1990s Initial Public Offering (IPO) boom, many took up the then mandatory bumiputra equity requirement for listings only to sell at the first sign of profit, while he stubbornly insisted on holding on.

The book gives many examples of where he received NEP aid, such as licences and loans, which helped to develop his transportation, rice trading, property development and shipping businesses in the 1970s and 1980s.

But Syed Mokhtar argues that it was no walk in the park for genuine Malay businessmen despite the leg up. All had to work hard to break into the new fields such as rice trading that the Government wanted them to enter.

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with whom Syed Mokhtar developed a mentee-mentor relationship, explained why the fellow Kedahan impressed him.

“As Malays, we want Malays to catch up with other Malaysians. Syed Mokhtar feels he should not sell things he acquired as a bumiputra. He does not believe in cashing out. That is something I appreciate.

“He is one of the New Economic Policy's success stories that include people such as (Tan Sri) Mustapha Kamal of Emkay, (Tan Sri) Shamusddin Kadir of Sapura, (Tan Sri) Azman Hashim of Ambank and a few others,” said Dr Mahathir.

Despite his many successes, Syed Mokhtar admits that he is sometimes hurt by Malay elites who looked down on him especially during his early years in business due to his disadvantaged background.

“Yes, I am a simple trader from Alor Setar who did not complete his Form Five education. Yes, I cannot draft a proper letter. I don't go to the theatre or spend my leisure on yachting holidays.

“However, I draw confidence from my faith in Allah the Almighty who has given me the dignity and the mental, spiritual and emotional strength to deal with all kinds of situations, all kinds of people.”

A father of seven, Syed Mokhtar is married to Puan Sri Sharifah Zarah Albukhary, daughter of Tan Sri Syed Kechik Syed Mohamed Albukhary, a famous lawyer who served as the special adviser to the Sabah Chief Minister and who later went on to set up his own investment conglomerate.

Family, apart from religion, is to Syed Mokhtar the source of the most important values that determine success.

Explaining what drives his extensive philanthropic work, including his Albukhary Foundation which provides aid such as scholarships and healthcare for the poor and disadvantaged, Syed Mokhtar goes back to a lesson learnt from his mother.

It is the motivation that has also driven the billionaire to fund numerous humanitarian projects worldwide including the establishment of an AIDS hospital in Uganda and aid to rebuild the lives of Afghan refugees, Pakistani earthquake survivors and Indonesian tsunami victims.

“My mother taught us nothing is yours until you have given it away with all your heart in the hope it will make someone's life easier,” said Syed Mokhtar.

The reminder is apt, summing up the bigger responsibility that the Malay entrepreneurial community hold as caretakers of wealth which ultimately belongs to the bumiputra and the nation.

BY RAZAK AHMAD 

RAZAK@THESTAR.COM.MY

Retrieved from:

http://www.thestar.com.my/story.aspxfile=%2f2012%2f11%2f25%2fnation%2f12338317&sec=nation

The caring side of Syed Mokhtar

FRESH from the publication of his biography recently, tycoon Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary has released a 195-page coffee table book on his global charity work, which many ordinary Malaysians are not familiar with.

Until the release of his biography Syed Mokhtar Albukhary: A Biography by Premilla Mohanlall, where he opened up on many issues for the first time to put the record straight, the reclusive billionaire had always shied away from the media.

He has rarely talked to journalists, except a privileged handful and even then, it is always on an off-the-record basis. This continuous distancing from the media has only put him under greater media scrutiny.

“I wonder why I get bad press when others who have abused the system for personal gains have not been subjected to such media scrutiny. Perhaps it is time to come out and defend myself,” he said in his book.

Envy, jealousy, fascination and simply selfish politics may have been reasons why SM, as he is known, has found it difficult to get the kind of coverage he wants, and deserves.

Malaysians have always had a fascination for tycoons and entrepreneurs, so it came as no surprise that his biography is on the best seller’s list. A Bahasa Malaysia version will be in the market soon.

Much has been shed on the life of Syed Mokhtar, who had to leave school after Form Five when the family ran out of money. His eldest brother was in Pakistan studying medicine, two sisters were in college and the other three siblings were still in school.

As the second in the family, he went into the meat trading business. He transported it to suppliers, mostly based in Kuala Lumpur.

Their Alor Star home was an attap hut with no piped water or electricity while the toilet was a pit latrine and the bathroom was an outdoor open zinc shed.

“I never forget my roots and humble days. I remembered once when my father, a cattle trader, was away for a long period of time, and there was no rice at home.

“My mother turned to our Chinese neighbour who supplied us with the rice and we returned it when my family came back.”

Like many Malaysian tycoons, Syed Mokhtar has set up a charity foundation to enable his group of companies to help the needy in a professional and organised manner.

The Albukhary Foundation traces its roots to the first company set up by him in 1974, where he donated half of his income derived from his business to 15 needy families in the village.

“My mother urged me to contribute to the poor, regardless of race and religion. So I made arrangements for half of my income of RM1,500 to be donated. It is a practice that still goes on with poor families receiving RM50 each every month.”

In his biography, the author Premilla Mohanlall, quoted the tycoon’s friend, Peter Chong, as saying: “Maybe God wants him to be rich so that he can help the needy. He is selfless.”

But action speaks louder than words. The Albukhary Foundation is an international charity with a presence in almost every continent.

“Wealth has to circulate. When you make money, you have to give it away. My mother taught us nothing is yours until you have given it away with all your heart in the hope it will make someone’s life easier.”

It has partnered non-governmental organisation and voluntary organisations to improve living conditions – from Afghan refugees, who are given free medical aid and free education, to building an AIDS hospital in Uganda and a school for girls in Nepal. There is even a programme to help street children in South Africa.

To some Malaysians, the foundation has always given the perception that it is only involved in Muslim-based charity work and that its beneficiaries are only Muslims.

He has supported generously the building of the main campus of the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman in Kampar as well as the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University as well as the Wawasan Open University in Penang, where the foundation contributed RM25mil for the building of the tower block.

Via his financial backing, Malaysia is home to South-East Asia’s largest museum of Islamic art, housing more than 7,000 artefacts and since its inception in 1998, it has become the world’s largest private Islamic museum.

With 12 galleries, it has collections that showcased the multi-ethnicity of the Muslim world that spreads over 13 centuries and across more than 100 nations.

It has maintained its reputation by collaborating with institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum, Stibbert Museum and the National Museum of New Delhi.

Another gem in the foundation’s work is the 35ha Albukhary International University in Alor Star with over 3,000 students, where the medium of instruction is English.

The coffee table book, with plenty of glossy pictures and interviews with ordinary people who benefitted from the charity, is currently in Bahasa Malaysia and English. Like his biography, there are plenty of reasons for Syed Mokhtar to make known the good work of the foundation. There is also a booklet on the work of the foundation.

Further information on the book can be obtained via www.albukharyfoundation.org

Retrieved from : 

http://www.thestar.com.my/story.aspxfile=%2f2013%2f1%2f5%2flifebookshelf%2f12509701&sec=lifebookshelf

Saturday January 5, 2013

Billionaire Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is Malaysia’s Top 10 Richest People For 2013

KUALA LUMPUR: Telecommunications billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan is now the richest man in Malaysia.With a fortune estimated to be around RM30.56 billion, he takes over the top spot previously held by ‘Sugar King’ Tan Sri Robert Kuok.

A research conducted by Chinese daily Nanyang Siang Pau showed that Ananda received a boost in his wealth when Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd was listed on the Bursa Malaysia last year.

The research showed that Kuok, who has investments in the hotels and resorts sector, agriculture and shipping industry, slipped from the number one spot, with a combined fortune of RM29.4 billion.

Kuok was last year’s richest Malaysian, based on the rankings issued by Malaysian Business, with an estimated fortune of RM45.7 billion, but his wealth receded by RM16.3 billion this year.

It is estimated that for 2012, the three men’s combined wealth is approximately RM75 billion.

Meanwhile, Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng of IOI Corporation Berhad, who is involved in among others, the agriculture and real estate industries, maintains his fourth spot on the list with an estimated worth of RM14.68 billion, compared to RM11.36 billion last year.

In fifth place is Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay from the Genting Group with RM14.17 billion, a jump from seventh place with RM7.58 billion last year.

He is followed by Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan from the Hong Leong Group, who retains his sixth spot. His fortune increased from RM8 billion last year to RM10.42 billion this year.

The riches of Tan Sri Dr Yeoh Tiong Lay of construction and property giants YTL Corporation went up 11 spots to seventh this year, with RM9.14 billion compared to RM9.53 billion last year.

One of the two Bumiputeras in the list, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary, fell from fifth spot to eighth, with RM9.14 billion compared to RM9.54 billion last year.

Ninth and 10th place, respectively, goes to banking magnate Tan Sri Azman Hashim of the AmBank Group, with RM14.8 billion, and Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian of Batu Kawan Bhd, who is worth RM3.95 billion.

The research, the second undertaken by Nanyang Siang Pau, also listed that the total estimated worth of all 10 billionaires is approximately RM141.35 billion.

It also stated that among the 10 richest entrepreneurs in Malaysia, the Chinese captured the top spot with a total worth of RM97.4 billion; Indians with RM30.56 billion; and Malays with RM13.32 billion. - MD

Retrieved from :
http://www.mutiara-damansara.com/1/category/tan%20sri%20syed%20mokhtar%20albukhary/1.html

26/10/2013

The '8 Great' Challenges Every Business Faces

This week I interviewed a personal mentor of mine – his name is Neal Jenson, Managing Director of consulting firm Qazztek, in Salt Lake City. He has one of the most diverse business backgrounds I’ve known, ranging from stints with Fortune 500 firms including Citigroup and Bank of America to start up firms looking to bootstrap or seeking their start through Angel funding or SBA loans.

He’s also one of the only people I know closely who actually has two masters degrees – an MBA from Brigham Young University (my own alma mater) and a masters of science in Information Service from the  University of Utah. In addition to acting as a mentor, Neal is also a friend—his son is the husband of our daughter, which makes us co-grandparents to two extremely adorable little boys, Riley and Peyton (our next generation of business leadership is in very good hands).

From his client base of all sizes, I asked Neal to narrow down for me the greatest challenges he sees for the businesses he counsels, as well as his thoughts on the ways to navigate each. Here are his responses.

First off, Neal notes that navigating a business is extra tricky these days.  The speed of economic and technological changes means that the right path yesterday may not work today and could be a disaster by tomorrow. Solving these dynamic problems is what separates those who excel from the companies who are closing the doors.

While Neal’s experience base ranges from Fortune 500 CEOs to small business entrepreneurs, he notes in our first interview a set of challenges that are common to both:

1. Integrity

Business has never faced the type of moral challenges that it faces in today’s global economy.  Everyone is struggling to be more successful, to make the next quarterly earnings estimate, to keep their job, to earn a big bonus, or to compete effectively.  The temptation to cut corners, omit information, and do whatever it takes to get ahead occur every day. Many business employees and executives succumb.  Sadly, the theme becomes highly infectious and soon people actually start to feel like lying a little, or stealing a little, or deceiving others, is just “a part of business”.  These practices erode the trust that needs to exist between employers and employees, between business partners, between executives and shareholders.  Without trust, the business will not be able to compete effectively and it will eventually fail.

2. Cash, Borrowing, and Resource Management

Cash is King!  We’ve all heard this maxim and it is more true today than ever before.  A healthy profit may look nice on your financial statements, but if capital expenditures or receivable collections are draining your cash, you won’t be able to stay in business for long.  Too often executives and small business owners fail to focus enough on cash flow generation.  In order to head off this problem, businesses must either be adequately capitalized and must shore up cash reserves to meet all obligations as they are needed and to handle downturns and emergencies that may arise. Cash management becomes even more important during recessionary times when cash is flowing more slowly into the business and creditors are less lenient in extending time to pay.  For small businesses, handling business accounting and taxes may be within the capabilities of the business owners, but professional help is usually a good idea. The complexity of a business’ books go up with each client and employee, so getting assistance with managing cash and the bookkeeping can allow you to excel when others are calling it quits. Cash flow challenges are exacerbated by the lending climate, particularly for small businesses. Bankers are unlikely to be more liberal in their lending policies any time soon.

3. Increased selection and competition

It’s never been easier to start a business. Gone are the days when it took weeks, months, and a myriad of forms to get your business started. Now if you can buy a domain name and register your business online, you’re in business. However, staying in business is a much more complicated matter.  While business expertise was once an expensive and time consuming endeavor, you can now find experts online for many questions that you might encounter.  There is help to starting an online store, for example, for getting business cards and marketing materials – all at a very reasonable cost.  The ease of starting a business creates a much broader level of competition.  You might find different business competing for each product you sell and new business that focus on a single item and spend all their time and focus on being the very best at just one thing.  This increase in overall selection and more focused completion will make it more difficult for businesses of all sizes to retain customers who can change their suppliers with the click of a mouse.  It’s a battle of perception, focus, and marketing. Business owners who master these elements and provide a great customer experience will win the sale.

4. Marketing and Customer Loyalty

Along the same lines as increased selection and competition is the challenge to market to potential customers effectively and retain your existing customers. Smartphones, social media, texting, email, twitter and other communication channels are making it easy for businesses and individuals to get their messages out.  Figuring out the right marketing channels is key for businesses to be successful in the future.  Where are your customers and how do you best reach them and what is the right messaging?  Once you get a new customer, how do you keep these customers when they are constantly barraged by competitors of all types, sizes, and locations, trying to convince them that they can do it better or provide it cheaper?  Identifying what your customers want and doing a better job of giving it to them will make all the difference in your company’s future.  The conservative spending climate is also causing a shrinking customer base. Consumers are still quite conservative with their pocketbooks, and as a result, organic growth from current and new customers is not growing as quickly as businesses would like. Business owners and executives are spending more time figuring out how to go above and beyond to keep existing customers, while at the same time figuring out how to cost-effectively reach new customers — without competing solely on price, which always ends up to be a race to the bottom.

5. Uncertainty

All of us, and especially business leaders find great discomfort in uncertainty. Because of global debt and economic struggles, uncertainty is more pronounced today than in the past. The sad news is that uncertainty leads to a short-term focus. Due to uncertainty, companies tend to shy away from long-term planning in favor of shorter-term goals. While this might feel right, a failure to strategically plan five to ten years into the future can end up destroying value. Businesses must learn to balance the need for a more reactive, short-term focus with the need for informed, long-term strategies. Uncertainty tends to put many into a general malaise – unable to get anything done. The ever-running news cycle leaves everyone feeling a bit on edge. This causes business owners and executives to hunker down and customers to stop spending. You need to shut out the world ending news and get back to work.”

6. Regulation

A changing regulatory environment is always of concern in certain industries, but uncertain energy, environmental and financial policy is wreaking havoc for nearly all companies today. Whether a demand from customers or shareholders to become more “green,” or the threat of increased costs due to new carbon taxes, environmental considerations are among the biggest challenges businesses face today. And we don’t need to give too much press to the current issue of financial reform and regulation, although we do have some opinions about how to prepare for that if you’re a bank or a brokerage house. The problems to be solved are to understand the meaning of regulation in your industry, its implications for your business, and to develop the skills necessary to deal with it.  Two key areas of regulatory challenges are taxes and health care.  Lawmakers are still haggling over what’s called the fiscal cliff, the combination of billions of dollars in tax increases and budget cuts. Even if Congress reaches an agreement, businesses won’t have the certainty they need to make intelligent decisions.  When Congress does reach an agreement, it most likely won’t be comprehensive enough that it won’t need to be revisited again next year. Health care has been another challenge for businesses. The new Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) is so complex that state and local governments won’t know what to do  and businesses will have to devote significant time and resources to understanding the law — or for a small business, hiring some professional to help them do it. They’ll have to get their arms around the law, look at their options, learn more about the exchanges and determine how to make it all work.   Many businesses don’t yet know whether their states will be creating exchanges, or whether they’ll have to go into the national system — and they don’t know what that will mean for their costs.  For some businesses, that information will help them decide whether they will buy insurance, or whether they’ll decide it’s cheaper to not provide coverage and just pay the government a $2,000-per-employee fine. For those who have close to 50 workers, they may decide to not hire more workers in order to remain outside the law’s jurisdiction.

7. Problem Solving and Risk Management

A major challenge for all companies is identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, including human and financial capital, in addition to the macro economy.  The lack of a sophisticated problem-solving competency among today’s business leaders is limiting their ability to adequately deal with risks facing their businesses. This is why corporate managers tend to jump from one fire to another, depending on which one their executives are trying to put out, and in many cases the fast-changing business environment is what ignites these fires. So what is the problem to be solved? We believe, to do well into the future, companies must resolve that problem solving is the key to business, then develop a robust problem-solving capability at all levels.   As companies proceed to identify risks, they will then have the problem solving skills to know how to best mitigate them.

8. Finding the right staff

Without exception, every business executive I speak to says that one of their biggest challenges is staff – finding the right staff, retaining them, and ensuring they buy into the vision of the business. I’ll freely admit that I have no magic answers here. In fact, if someone could develop a formula for recruiting and engaging the right team members, they would make millions.  A small business is almost like a family, and, like many families, they can work well, or they can be dysfunctional. In big companies, the human resource challenge is politics and fit in the workplace, but when it comes to small business, its personalities and skill.  When you work in a small environment, each team member’s personality can have a huge impact on the harmony and productivity of the business. The key is to learn how to deal with different personalities, figure out what drives each individual team member and tailor your management accordingly.  Despite high unemployment, many companies struggle to find the right talent with the right skills for their business.   Many new manufacturing jobs require high-tech skills. They include positions at factories where computers are used to create products like airplane parts and machinery. And some require several years of training.  Because of changing technology, businesses are struggling to find qualified workers with IT skills, problem solving abilities, and deductive reasoning skills.

Retrieved from : 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/03/04/the-8-great-challenges-every-business-faces-and-how-to-master-them-all/