Khazanah to hit or be hit by the M&A trail?
The frontpage of last Thursday's The Star Business Section placed Azman Mokhtar's quote at the top page. Thinking of the failure and questionable deals by Khazanah companies abroad, the prospect of Khazanah's plan to go on the Merger & Acquisition trail is shuddering.
Khazanah was originally formed in late 90s/early 2000s as a holding company to place all of Governmnet's strategic investments into one. When it was formed, one of it's objective was to consolidate the Government's strategic asset and increase ability to invest for the nation's economic future to build capacity and capability in new technoilogy and new sector.
To-date, that objective has not been for all intended purposes be met. Thats the common problem in this country. Institutions are established for a specific long term purpose. Change in national leadership, some smart alec will change the objective and that original purpose is ignored.
During Tun Abdullah's administration and Tan Sri Nor Mohamad Yakcop leadership, Khazanah was turned into a portfolio manager of Government's asset. Instead of acting as true managers able to turnaround companies and enhance companies, they were merely financial man taking shortcuts through corporate restructuring after corporate restructuring and financial asset shuffling.
That made made billion for the Merchant and Investment Bankers but it did not translate into enhancing the brick and mortar of businesses. All these had minimal direct impact in the creation of real good and service that could help increase economic activity domestically, create export income, create jobs, and opprtunity for Malaysian entrepreneurs, if not Bumis.
