FashionValet: Who is Vivy's father, Yusof Perancis?

The humongous loss and the fire sale of FashionValet.com has been the buzz within the local tech community for a while, but it did not catch on publicly till Yeo Bee Yin recently raised the issue in Parliament.  

Typical of Malaysians to immediately point fingers at politicians. The imprisoned Najib was blamed. Daim and his then "Council of Elders" (Council of Emminent Persons) linked. His puppet Economic Minister, Azmin Ali implicated.  

But then the nicnamed father of Vivy, Yusof Perancis immediatey became a conversation. He was PMX's former Secretary when he was DPM. Yusof is close with Deputy Prime Ministers - past and present, and also past Ministers like Annuar Musa and Maszlee Malek. And, said to be capable at structuring schemes in investment, business and funding.

Afzal, the man behind the buyer, NVBT Partner can be given a political spin, but better not to go through that path. Everythng can be spinned to PH, BN and PN, so stick to the facts, issue of accountability, and individuals' integrity. 

As Scoop.com's A Azam Aris wrote:

Given that taxpayer funds and deposits are either directly or indirectly involved, Malaysians feel justified in asking for comprehensive accountability. Transparency in such high-stakes investments is paramount to upholding public trust, particularly when public funds are involved.

Khazanah’s reputation has suffered from a string of substantial losses, and this goes beyond FashionValet alone. The issue raises a larger question about governance and investment strategy within government-linked companies (GLCs).  

Under Azman Mokhtar, Khazanah failed in all their turnaround assignments of Proton, UEM and MAS. 

The MAS assignment that his consulting firm, Bina Fikir undertook continue to blead after decades of involvement after Tajudin Ramli was forced out. His people are still involved to the present day at Khazanah's MAG. 

Khazanah under Azman couldn't turn a simple "tuna cowboy" business of fishing in the open sea, Paloh Inai farming venture, food supply chain operation business, and various tech ventures into profit. Yet he attempted an entrepreneurial business requiring hands-on involvement in the cut throat and creativity business of fashion and e-commerce.

These Wall Street people have no business to pursue and manage Main Street stuff. 

It is puzzling that Khazanah and PNB could invest RM43 million in e-commerce business as minority shareholder in 2018 in which the platform ended up being used to sell Vivy Yusof and husband Fakaruddin's Duck brand tudung and various clothing paraphenelia at premium pricing. 

Abdul Rahman Ahmad was the President and COO of PNB from 2016 to 2019 and returned to PNB as Chairman from July 2024. Though it was known Ekuinas under his charge was looking at the fashion business, PNB CEO was Mahathir hand-picked Jaleel Rasheed from September 2019 to mid 2020.

Apparently, Vivy had gone into hiding to escape answering the media. Maybe taken a leaf from old man Mahathir who would check into IJN after throwing stones at Zahid in his civil lawsuit against him. 

Fahmi asked that Khazanah and PNB be given time to answer. Its already too much time. They should have answered by now. The platform announced focusing only on its own brand, and fire sales exposed in late August.

Vulcumpost.com investigated the sales in September 2024 (reproduced below):

We investigated FashionValet’s alleged “fire sale” with SSM reports, here’s what we found

Claudia Khaw September 6, 2024

FashionValet is no stranger to controversy, having been under fire in 2022 when it announced its pivot away from its own FashionValet fashion platform to focus on its inhouse brands dUCK and LILIT.

Recently, the business came under scrutiny again following an article by a newsletter called Asia Tech Review.

The platform claims that FashionValet “has been taken over by local investment firm NXBT Partners in a fire sale”.

According to Investopedia, a fire sale refers to a situation where securities are trading well below their intrinsic value.

The source that Asia Tech Review cites is Amanz, which reported about the sale in an article dated February 16, 2024.

 

Vulcan Post did reach out to founder and director Vivy Yusof for comment, but wasn’t able to get a response.

Given the lack of details and proof, we decided to purchase some financial documents from MyData SSM to verify the information ourselves.

1. NXBT Partners is owned by the CEO of TIME dotCom Berhad

Asia Tech Review and Amanz had reported that NXBT Partners is a personal investment vehicle owned by Afzal Bin Abdul Rahim.

To verify this, we purchased NXBT Partners Sdn. Bhd.’s company profile. Indeed, the company is wholly owned by Afzal Bin Abdul Rahim, who is none other than the CEO of TIME dotCom Berhad.

The nature of NXBT Partners is “Activities of holding companies”. A holding company typically exists for the sole purpose of controlling other companies.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Afzal is also a founding board member of Endeavor Malaysia and a senior independent director at CIMB.

2. NXBT Partners owns 2,513,467 ordinary shares in the company

According to the latest annual return of, which was filed June 2024, NXBT Partners is the major stakeholder of FashionValet Sdn. Bhd.

Out of the total shares of 4,904,325, the holdings company owns 2,513,467, which is 51.25%.  

It was reported by Asia Tech Review and Amanz that NXBT Partners paid some “US$1.1 million” for those secondary shares. 

We couldn’t find confirmation or additional details on when NXBT bought these shares and for how much, though.

Other shareholders include Vivy Yusof and husband Fadzarudin.

A number of corporate bodies also have a stake in the business. There’s Zozo Inc, a Japanese company that operates fashion online shopping sites.

A Bruneian company called Reussi also owns shares in the business. Proven Holding, the company owned by Vivy’s father Yusof Jusoh, is also a shareholder.  

MyEG Capital is also a shareholder with 283,246 ordinary shares. MYEG Capital had actually given the company its seed funding of RM1 million in 2012.

As of the end of 2023, Khazanah Nasional still had a 9% stake in the business. But this is not reflected in Fashion Valet’s latest documents, implying that Khazanah sold their shares somewhere between December 31, 2023 and February 16, 2024 when the Amanz article was released.

According to Tracxn, Khazanah, along with Pulau Tiga Ventures and another company, had invested US$9.07 million into the business in 2018.

Reportedly, there was also a follow-on investment of US$2.99 million in this Series C round led by Pemodalan Nasional Berhad, another government-linked Malaysian investment management company.

According to Tracxn, the post-money valuation (valuation of a company after an investment is made) in 2019, after its Series C round investment would have been US$92.4 million.

But if it’s true that NXBT had paid US$1.1 million for 51.25% shares, that would’ve brought the valuation down to around, US$2,146,000.

3. FashionValet has an accumulated loss of RM127,576,371 as of the latest financial statement

So, how is FashionValet doing, though?

Well, for the financial year ended December 31, 2023, the business reported negative retained earnings, with a figure of -RM127,576,371.

Retained earnings are a firm’s cumulative net earnings or profit after accounting for dividends. So, this means that FashionValet has not made profit since the inception of the business.

This figure had been -RM83.4 million when we last investigated the company, for its financial year ending December 31, 2020.

As for their losses after tax, it was -RM34,508,166 for the financial year ended December 31, 2022.

This figure had been -RM12,371,305 for the financial year ended December 31, 2020.

For the financial year ended December 31, 2021, though, business seemingly improved somewhat, with a loss after tax figure of -RM9,625,559.

So, what?

Why is this a big deal, you may wonder? Businesses tend to rise and fall, and incurring losses is part and parcel of being an entrepreneur.

Penjana Kapital .. Jana Wibawa ... rings a bell? 

Well, since FashionValet’s pivot in 2022, many netizens’ complaints and sentiments have been similar. They’re dissatisfied with Khazanah’s decisions and performance.  

For context, Khazanah Nasional is the sovereign wealth fund of the Government of Malaysia.

According to its website, Khazanah not only aims to deliver strong long-term risk-adjusted returns across their portfolio, but they also contribute towards the nation’s long-term competitiveness and prosperity.

“Ultimately, our activities and investments are anchored towards delivering long lasting impact towards a better Malaysia, responsibly,” they stated.

Understanding this, it might explain why Malaysians are scrutinising Khazanah—because it had invested a sizable amount in FashionValet, which allegedly may have seen a huge drop in its valuation. Meaning to say, Khazanah may have lost money because of this investment.  

It’s important to note, though, that Khazanah actually reported a profit of RM5,890,000,000 for 2023. And in fact, a year after Khazanah invested in FashionValet in 2018, it had raked in RM7,360,000,000 in profits.

Ultimately, FashionValet is only one company under Khazanah’s portfolio. That said, some healthy scrutiny over the government-linked investment company is understandable.

However, in an email to Business Times, Khazanah defended its decision to support local founders and the Malaysian startup ecosystem, including its investment in FashionValet.

With all that said, neither FashionValet nor NBXT Partners have issued any statements or clarifications over the situation.

But judging by the documents we purchased, we can verify that NBXT Partners is now the major shareholder of FashionValet. With Afzal Abdul Rahim at the helm now, perhaps some changes in the business are in order.

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Afzal is one loud character with firm views on social and political issues. Unless there were collusion to sell cheaply to him, it shoudn't be a concern. However, the puzzling part remained on Khazanah and PNB. 

They have to answer why sell off cheaply a tax loss company of RM127 million at fire sale price? Is it to hide issues below raised by The Endie twitter below:

And, was there collusion involving LSE-graduate Vivy, her Imperial College graduate husband and their easily awed British top university buddies dominating Khazanah and PNB?  

But then, The Endlie or Endie Shazlie Akbar Ali and Dr Muhammad Khalid was involved as Secretariat to the "Council of Elders", if the recollection is not wrong. 

Vivy was interviewed by the "Council of Elders" at the suggestion of then Minister of Education, Maszlee Malek, who was then with PPBM (now PKR), to be a member of the Board of Director of UiTM. 

As written earlier, do not drag in politics. 

So do those with footprints and served certain politicians and statesmen should not be overzealous on Twitters. Come to think of it, the nonsence may not be at Khazanah or PNB, but Endie trying to evade any embarassment to Daim should it trailed to Azmin ...?