Saturday 2 March 2024

Dr Mahathir's First Sin ; Vincent Tan, the Ex Billionaire Who Cried Wolf.

TUN Mahathir's first born privatization exercise on record was to gift Vincent Tan Chee Yioun READ : Sports Toto, a Government owned lotto operator, which was supposed to use proceeds from lottery tickets to fund sports and the under privileged, allegedly based on a two page proposal.

THE exercise, which took place in 1985, in a deal valued at RM28 million, saw the Government, classify the entity taking over Sports Toto, READ : B&B Enterprises, which was 70 per cent owned, by the ethnic Chinese businessmen, Vincent Tan Chee Yioun as a BUMIPUTRA entity.

VALUE Invest Asia, in a 2014 report, described Sport Toto, as the ultimate cash cow, with READ :from 1985 to 2013, at annual 184 per cent , helping nudge revenue from RM76 billion to RM3.44 billion.

INSTEAD of the bulk of the profits being ploughed into  helping the less fortunate and heavily investing into domestic sporting  development, the numbers forecaster which was experiencing a 412 per cent annual growth in profit, ended paying 75 per cent of profitd back to its shareholders via dividend payment


BY 2012, Vincent Tan had retired from Corporate Malaysia, and ventured into Europe's football scene in the ensuring years by acquiring football clubs in the United Kingdom, Sarajevo and in Belgium.

THOSE bets in Europe, proved costly to Vincent Tan, as in less than 11 years, he had lost more than US$600 million of his fortune. READ : Forbes now estimates Vincent Tan Chee Yioun to be worth US$695 million.

TUN Mahathir's, re-emergence as Prime Minister in 2020 seem to be God send for Vincent Tan Chee Yioun on a personal level, while on the business front, it seemed ripe for another run on corporate Malaysia.

VINCENT Tan Chee Yioun's son's READ ; fortunate escape from drug related charges some time in 2020,  is common knowledge here, but  what IS NOT WIDELY KNOWN IS DURING THAT SAME  TIME LINE ,  Donald Trump's, Department of Justice  was heavily investigating a company, in which the SAME son , and a daughter of the tycoon were directors.


AT around, the same time, Vincent Tan Chee Yioun and his son in law , one of the controlling stakeholders of the Naza Group, had submitted a RM300 million plan to take over the expiring contract of SPANCO to provide and service Government vehicles.

LUCKILY, for the Bumiputra community, Malaysia's nineth Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri did not allow history to repeat itself, by cancelling the Letter of Intent given to Vincent Tan Chee Yioun's Berjaya Group and Naza Group joint venture.

IF in 1985, Vincent Tan Chee Yioun's takeover entity of Sports Toto, was given a sweet deal on THE PRETEXT it was a BUMIPUTRA entity by the Mahathir Administration, the 2020/2022 , fleet management concession by the Mahathir administration would have caused as many as 300 Bumiputra owned SPANCO service providers, immediately shutting down.

NEXT ; Money Talks, Bullshit Walks.