New Valentines in PECD
Remember the story on Valentine's Day about UMNO buying its way as a substantial shareholder in loss-making construction firm?
Flashback: The purpose of the buy-in was reportedly that Umno will buy 25% of PECD, a loss-making firm with a RM1.4 billion order book, "a move that could help the company settle its disputes with government-related bodies".
Yesterday, according to The EdgeDaily, Dr Sheikh Awab Sheikh Abod and Shakir Jamil Fisa have emerged as PECD Bhd's two new substantial shareholders -- with exactly a 25% stake, or 75 million shares, in the company.
The duo acquired the shares via the acquisition of Peremba PJ Holdings Sdn Bhd, which owned the stake.
Comments
The story of Peremba is a colourful one. It is one of those companies that used to be owned by the government, and somehow, through twists and turns, the ownership changed.
UDA(Urban Development Authority) is also called PERbadanan pEMbangunan BAndar.
Combine the capital letters and what do you get? Peremba used to be a 100% subsidiary of UDA.
In fact they even did a number on UDA itself, by way of "privatising" it and made it a public listed company. Some officials made lots of money, and conveniently retired. UDA, the statutory body set up with very specific objectives suddenly found itself raped by it's own officials and left with it's raison d'etre being questioned by the very people whom it was supposed to serve.
In the end, the government was forced to spend about RM500million to buy out all the shares and bring UDA back to do the job it was set up to do. Whose fault was it? The officials who took advantage of the situation or the government for letting them? Any ones' guess, but one thing is certain: we need smarter people to make policies, to ward off predators of companies like UDA and Peremba.
Besides these, there have been other companies and government assets that have been "taken over". Many are doing well, because of the very low price, already matured companies and other perks 'negotiated' at te point of aquisition. The ones who lose are the taxpayers, because, these are govt assets (our assets) being sold for a song to well connected individuals.
LJ
Posted by: longjafaar![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.my/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 2, 2007 03:52 PM
All I know is anyone caught wind of this news and bought into PECD, they would'VE made quite a handsome sum.
14/2/07 - hovering around and if BOUGHT at RM0.36 x 10,000 units = RM3,600
16/2/07 - reached a high and if SOLD at RM0.82 x 10,000 = RM8,200
PROFIT around RM4,600
Maybe some lucky UMNO insiderS might've turned a bit richer literrally overnight
Posted by: menarinari01![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.my/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 3, 2007 12:19 AM
government owned entities were mostly ripped off by their managers who treated these companies like their own.
But I am very surprise that the government seldom take any action to recover its losses.
The problem being that the managers are very well connected, not to UMNO, but are elites in the society, such as prominent civil servants.
Posted by: sydput![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.my/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 5, 2007 10:29 AM