40 years of nation building
J. White, it is a first biography of PNB, marking its 40th anniversary.
“As a government-linked corporation PNB is a unique “hybrid”, being both an investment company and a fund manager. The Corporation was formed with a specific mandate to raise income and savings levels through spreading corporate ownership more evenly throughout the Malaysian economy, particularly among the lower-income, indigenous Bumiputera communities,” said White who is a professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Liverpool John Moores University and Co-Director of Liverpool’s Centre for Port and Maritime History.
A genial White who was in the city last week with his wife to promote his tome on PNB said the book includes PNB’s origins in the New Economic Policy (NEP), growth and management of its vast investment portfolio and its highly successful unit trust schemes encompassing millions of small-scale investors.
White said one of the marks of the integrity of the trust that PNB was able to show is that as a long-term investor it is able to come out strong from a financial crisis.
“This was demonstrated in 1998 where despite the Asian financial crisis, it was able to come out stronger and people were able to trust it even more. As a long-term investor it was able to hold onto shares for a longer term and once the Malaysian economy improved the shares were able to recover too.”
While putting the book together he came across several interesting interviews and one which really impressed him was the marketing experiences of a lady called Rosniah Karim who in the early 80s, was one of the first female marketers appointed by ASNB to market the scheme.
“Then, the unit trust scheme was a new concept to people and had to be marketed face to face. There were fascinating stories that she told about having to travel upriver in rural Pahang, staying overnight in the kampungs. She had to get up first thing early in the morning to sell them the unit trust scheme, not just to the Malays but Orang Asli as well, deep in the jungles of Pahang. These are quite resilient stories that she tells, as she was essentially a KL city girl. There was one incident where she comes across wild elephants for the first time, up close and personal, and another where her Land Rover turned turtle.
“Truly the travelling stories that I unearthed were quite amazing. Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, the former Group Chief Executive of PNB, had to market the unit trust among the indigenous Ibans and Dayaks in Sabah and Sarawak. He remembers travelling deep in the Sarawak interior to persuade the chief of a longhouse to invest, then having to wait all day with the chief while he smoked his keretek cigarettes and thought about the possibility of doing so. It was an important moment because once he signed, all the villagers would follow suit.”
White expresses his gratitude to the many parties who assisted in the writing of the book.
“This book would not have been possible without the support that I have received from so many, including former leaders of PNB and the research team of PNB Research Institute who provided valuable information and insight into the fascinating world of this ‘hybrid’ organisation. PNB’s legacy has shown that an institution with very strong capabilities in the corporate sector can bring about significant progress to Malaysian society.”
Priced at RM150 for hard cover volumes and RM120 for soft cover copies, the book will be available nationwide at all MPH bookstores and online, via MPH Online store from Dec 10.