Irene Omar and any Khazanah, PNB complot need a life too

The public pressure was unbearable that the owner of FashionValet (FV), Vivy Yusof and Fadza Annuar officially apologised and resigned from the company. 

Off course, they have to resign now that Afzal and his company, NBXT Partner have majority control. Its unlikely of him to keep the never profitable FV team. Otherwise, the member of the BOD of CIMB would be seen as in collusion.

Khazanah too issued a statement and cited the Covid 19 pandemic as the primary reason for the company's failure. 

A member of the Board of Director of FV, former CEO of Air Asia Berhad, and current President of Capital A Berhad, Irene Omar too spoke of the financial devastation of the pandemic on businesses including Air Asia. 

Snippet of her video below:

Frankly she better put her life in order because she will be facing public scrutiny and someone could be facing "life sentence" for trying to cover-up for allegation of squandering public money. 

Scoop.my's Arjuna Mohanakrishnan revealed that FV was a loss making entity before and after Khazanah and PNB invested in the portal. It means Khazanah was misleading the public for directing the blame to Covid and hiding the fact that they overvalued the investment in FV.

The startling revelation is, as extracted below:

In 2018, the year sovereign wealth fund Khazanah and fund management firm PNB invested RM27 million and RM20 million, respectively, into FashionValet, the company recorded losses of RM20.18 million in losses after tax – a steep RM9.4 million increase from the previous year. 

Edge wrote: "Separate wheat from chaffe, please". NST reported the following headline:

Sabah Media's Wan Azrain revealed that the RM27 million paid by Khazanah represented only 9% of the company,.

It means Khazanah management valued the loss-making (or more precisely never profitable company) at RM300 million. Is that a reasonable valuation?

That was invested in early 2018. 

Not only, Khazanah and PNB pumped in RM47 millon for the loss-making company which they described as "promising homegrown e-commerce fashion platform", both gave majority control to Vivy, Fadza and Vivy's father, Yusof Perancis majority control!

That's mind boggling, but do hold on to your fire. That's not mind blowing enough yet. 

Sometime in late 2018, around September, FV bought over 30 Maple, the supplier and owner of the Duck brand of tudung or these days it is more appropriate to be called *ucked-up brand for RM95 million. 

Is it possible Vivy and her husband cashed out of their financial commitment to dump the company to FV and get paid handsomely?

So is it fair to accuse they "legally" enriched themselves but at the expense of public money in which Khazanah and PNB allowed it by giving the "anak beranak" (family) control?  

Bodoh tak Khazanah and PNB?

So then, is the stupid decision by Khazanah and PNB made consciously by them or it is forced on them?

This leads to the politically video of You-Tuber Aswardy Morni (below). Be reminded that this blog cautioned about playing politics on this issue, however, the buck must stop somewhere. 

If it does not stop at the management committee or Board of Directors, it could move up the Ministry and all the way to the Minister, in which Azmin Ali was the then Economic Minister.

The portfolio of government investment agencies were shifted by Mahathir and Daim away from Lim Guan Eng to Azmin!

Now then, why did Irene Omar gallantly defended FV to the point of losing her cool? Other than the fact that she is a member of the Board of Director of FV, why do another Naemah Daim?

This could be guesswork but one connot not notice the similarity of Air Asia with Tony Fernandez as the face of the product and Vivy Yusof as the face of FV. 

Meanwhile, the financial brain of Kamaruddin Meranun lies in the background of Air Asia. Similarly, the brain of FV was the husband and father who preferred to stay in the background.

Probably Vivy is a woman initiative to create a successful icon of young woman. Nothing wrong there as long it is legitimate and genuinely profitable. 

Or perhaps because there is similarity of FV to Air Asia in seeking forgiveness for the reconstituted RM63.5 billion debts and given a 99.5% debt haircut to restructure RM33.7 billion liabilities. 

There is public money from Khazanah and PNB-owned banks and listed companies similarly slashed like RM43.7 million investment reduced to a firesale of RM3.1 million.

Tell that to the millions of Malaysian entrepreneurs, who were denied opportunity by someone born with a silver spoon and adjucated bankrupt by banks and government agency for mere droplets of failure.

They would be cussing at people who got away scot free after making humongous losses.