Khairy warns of fall of more GLCs

KHAIRY JAMALUDDIN has expressed concern that government-linked companies (GLCs) will fall following the resignation of the entire Khazanah Nasional Bhd board of directors yesterday.

“Khazanah recruited the best and brightest Malaysians. It would be a shame to dismantle everything that has been built only to replace it with a business model from the 1990s.

“My fear is GLCs will be broken up and flogged off to 1990-esque businessmen. We all know how that ended,” he tweeted yesterday.

Describing the resignations as “not surprising”, Khairy said the sovereign state fund’s role as a government’s strategic investment arm needs to be continued.

He said the entity has grown tremendously from what it was at the end of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s first term as prime minister in 2003.

“Back then, it was essentially a holding entity for the government’s stake in companies. No strategic role.”

Khairy said after Mahathir stepped down, Khazanah transformed into a strategic investment arm with a mandate to not just increase asset value but also make investments in sectors that would benefit the nation.

“I hope the present GLC model will be continued. GLC transformation is a success story,” he said, adding that tweaks needed to be made as companies, among other things, were crowding out private businesses.

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