Pandora box of Y.T.Lee & Ambrose Lee

If you keep your mouth shut, you won't put your foot in it!

SOMETIMES it is best not to open one’s mouth, lest an unintended quote or fact or truth is uttered, and could lead to the proverbial “opening a can of worms” so to speak.

So when businessman J Ambrose Lee last Sunday (August 8 2010) furiously denied having had a hand in the crash in the unit price of Saham Amanah Sabah (SAS) in 1997 – and he gave his reasons why – the articles in the local newspapers gave rise to more questions for Malaysians in Sabah to ponder.

Just to recap: “Lee was known to be the owner of now defunct Suniwang Holdings Sdn Bhd, which bought the MISC blue chip shares from Sabah government’s investment arm, Warisan Harta Sabah Sdn Bhd (WHSSB), in exchange for the North Borneo Timber (NBT) and Sugarbun shares back in 1997.

”The allegations riled him enough to want to put on record that he had “nothing to do” with the SAS unit price plummeting from RM1 to less than 20 sen in 1997-1998 and causing some 55,000 investors to lose about RM400 million.” – as quoted by Free Malaysia Today in its 09 August edition. The local newspapers carried a similar article the day earlier.

Lee also explained: “The share swap dealing under his former company Suniwang Holdings Sdn Bhd was with Warisan Harta Sabah Sdn Bhd (WHSSB) and it had nothing to do with SAS.

”The deal, he said, was for WHSSB to sell to Suniwang Holdings 32 million MISC shares for RM182,400,000 at RM5.70 per unit, which is more than the market price of RM5 at that time.

”On the other hand, Suniwang Holdings paid the RM182.4 million by way of RM50 million cash (in January 1998) to WHSBB through Innosabah Securities, RM96 million from sales of three million NBT shares at RM32 per unit and another RM36.404 million from sales of 4.79 million Sugar Bun shares at sale and market price of RM7.60.”

Now, the government has no business to be involved in the stock market business in the first place, especially so, when its leaders have faint knowledge of the vagaries of the stock exchange. Somemore, a shrewd and clever lawyer/businessman in the likes of Lee, who definitely had nothing else on his mind, but to make a killing out of that transaction. Nothing wrong you would say. Perhaps!

Let the people of Sabah, especially those who lost out RM400 million and who now hold paper that is somewhat not worth what they paid out in the first place, be the judge of whether the transaction is right or wrong. And let the people of Sabah judge whether the government of the day made the correct decision at that time.

Let us just consider this simple mathematics: -

Some 32 million MISC shares sold to Suniwang at RM5.70 per share. Today MISC shares are worth RM8.86. So the State Government lost (RM8.86-RM5.7) x 32 million = RM101,120,000.00. Or the owner of those shares now hold more than RM100 million worth of shares at today’s market value. Ermmm ….. what a fantastic deal.

But what about the NBT and Sugar Bun shares? What are they worth today? Oooops I believe both companies have been struck off the Bursa Saham (as the Malaysian Stock Exchange is known as). So ………..

Lee also proudly said: “(Due to the losses) my company (Suniwang) then agreed to pay Warisan Harta Sabah Sdn Bhd the difference between the purchase and the market traded price amounting to RM96 million as he had issued a personal guarantee. He claimed that he had proposed that the amount be paid through a third party Borneo Marble Corporation Sdn Bhd by transferring its properties worth RM350 million which he said was valued by independent valuers, to WHSSB.
 

The question that begs to be answered here, is, who is the owner of Borneo Marble Corporation Sdn Bhd, and how come Lee was able to offer this company to WHSSB.

Lee at the said Press Conference also questioned that the status of North Borneo Timber (NBT). “If all this while politicians have been saying that the NBT is worthless, then why was the NBT Forest Management Unit (FMU2) concession sold and bought by another party and a senior lawyer?” he asked.

He said a check with the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) showed that a senior lawyer was holding a proportionate amount of shares in the new company, also known as the NBT Corporation.

Surely, the people of Sabah deserve to know who this gentleman is.

Lee’s remarks may or may not absolve him of any wrong doing, but, whatever said and done, the government of the day has to accept the responsibility and shoulder the blame, and not just shirk off the blame as if to say, “it’s no longer my problem”. The person or persons concerned has a moral obligation to accept responsibility for anything that transpired during that period, rightly or wrong.

Taken from: http://borneopandora.blogspot.com/2010/08/if-you-keep-your-mouth-shut-you-wont.html