Prescene 8 - Will Pak Lah's son exits Scomi?

Jurublog has been planning to put up this Predictive Scenario (Prescene) upon noticing a flurry of exits by Pak Lah’s known lieutenants from the corporate scene. These exits looked like a prelude to Pak Lah’s own exit from Malaysia main political scene in March 2009.

Kalimullah has exited New Straits Times, where he has been helming the mainstream paper’s editorial board. There are now lesser “over-the-top” praises for Pak Lah in the newspaper on anything that Pak Lah did (except sleeping during meetings and conferences, even in the presence of the Agong). Kalimullah had a few times boasted in his weekly column in the newspaper that he was so close to Pak Lah that he would know first hand of Pak Lah’s intended actions.

Patrick Lim (a.k.a. Patrick Badawi) has also exited Equine Capital. Patrick Lim was one of main guys responsible for the mega project in Penang, which has since been abandoned by the DAP state government. Patrick Lim was also involved in Monsoon Cup in Terengganu. It was said that in one occasion in Terengganu, Pak Lah actually disembarked from his official car to ride on together with Patrick Badawi. It was also said that Patrick Badawi would be at Pak lah’s house on the first day of Hari Raya wearing full gear Baju Melayu with samping. And the house that Pak Lah was purportedly staying in Perth, Western Australia during the great flood in Johor in December 2007, was owned by Patrick Lim’s family.

But last week’s announcement by Scomi to undertake Rights Issue of shares to raise RM120 million in capital caught Jurublog by surprise. During this time of financial crunch, when it is difficult to get investors to invest new monies, Scomi made a bold move to solicit new capital from its shareholders.

Scomi is substantially owned by Pak Lah’s son, Kamaluddin, together with Shah Hakim Zain, the CEO of Scomi.

Scomi has loss a potentially lucrative monorail project in Penang when the current DAP government decided to look at other alternatives to ease the urban transportation problem on the island.

When Pak Lah decided to ride on the Komuter and LRT just before Hari Raya 2008, everybody thought that he was going to announce something for the benefit of Scomi, to compensate Scomi’s loss of the monorail project in Penang. Luckily, by not announcing any major initiatives after his public transportation surprise ride, Pak Lah has avoided another potential controversy.

To be fair, much of Scomi’s businesses are located overseas. Scomi has recently been awarded a mega train project in Mumbai, India. The RM120 million capital raising exercise through the Rights Issue may be use to partly finance the Mumbai project. Unfortunately, due to the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai, the project looked a bit risky, and may be subjected to prolonged delays.

Unfortunately too, although Scomi has been relatively successful with their overseas ventures, there are negative perceptions on their ability to deliver their part of the deal locally in Malaysia. For example, Scomi has been criticised for the abandoned city buses owned by RapidKL.

With Pak Lah exiting the top administration post, it will be likely that Kamaluddin will concentrate on his overseas projects.

Will he exit Scomi? May be. Jurublog thinks so.