Screenshots

The board of New Straits Times Press (NSTP), which owns the 111-year old Malay Mail, has rejected the buy-over bid that Singapore Business Times reported November 4.

KL-based Business Times correspondent S. Jayasankaran, in another story published yesterday, confirmed what Screenshots reported four days ago that the bid involved a Daim's Boy who was teaming up with "a former Anwar's Boy from Nexnews to take over Malay Mail". Quote:

Mr Ibrahim (Mohammad Nor), a low-profile publisher of lifestyle magazines and a protege of former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, joined forces with Mr Tong (Kooi Ong), who owns The Edge Financial Daily and The Sun newspaper through listed Nexnews, to bid for The Malay Mail in October.

The duo offered RM5 million for the 11-year-old daily paper and a further RM3 million for its archives, according to sources.

Political sensitivities may have also impeded the sale, the Business Times said, quoting sources. Quote:

NSTP, the country's largest publisher with six English and Malay newspapers, is owned by a company linked to the ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the dominant political party that represents Malaysia's majority race.

The sale of one of its units to an ethnic Chinese publisher - even one in partnership with a Malay businessman - could have drawn flak from within the party.

Moreover, said the Business Times, Tong owns theSun, which is distributed free and considered a competitor to NSTP's flagship newspaper The New Straits Times.

Doing business in Malaysia

According to the business sheets, events surrounding the bid for The Malay Mail epitomise the complexities of doing business in Malaysia, especially in the sensitive area of newspaper publishing, where political considerations often outweigh commercial sense.

All of Malaysia's mainstream newspapers and television channels are either owned outright by political parties within the ruling National Front government or controlled by businessmen who support the government, the Business Times said.

Between July last year and June this year, which a dismal failure in a 'last-ditch' makeover exercise, The Malay Mail's circulation plunged 38% as monitored by Malaysia's Audit Bureau of Circulation.

With the NSTP board's decision to reject the bid offer, the fate of the loss-making paper hangs in the balance.

When Malay Mail was reinvented last year, it was losing RM7 million a year. It could be more now, Business Times said.