Walla! The Malaysian F1 Team

Tongue-in-cheek,this could just be the Malaysian F1 Team.

In the true spirit of the 1Malaysia concept of PM Najib,this could well be it. Three drivers of the component races in the drivers' seats.

Another Malaysia Boleh!

Wilbur Ross: Buying Garbage Quality Banks

NEW YORK, Oct 20 — Foreclosed homes, failed banks, and toxic assets produced during the current recession might look like a mountain of garbage to most people.

But to billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, they are “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

This year, Ross has emerged as one of the government’s closest allies in mopping up the mess resulting from the financial crisis.

Earlier this month, his firm WL Ross partnered with a consortium of investors and paid US$554 million (RM1.86 billion) to buy a pool of bad loans from failed Chicago bank Corus.

And last May, he was part of a group that bought BankUnited, a failed Florida bank, for US$900 million.

Ross (picture) also was an early participant in a federal programme in which the government provided part of the financing to investors willing to buy securities backed by credit card debt and auto loans.

The goal: get credit flowing again in those moribund markets.

Ross bought around US$400 million of those loans. Now, he has raised US$1 billion to buy toxic assets from banks, in partnership with the government. Bank failures have reached 99 this year, vs. 25 in all of 2008, draining the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s resources. The government has no option but to turn to deep-pocketed private-equity investors such as Ross for help.

No wonder Ross says that he is preparing to buy more banks.

“There will be another 500 banks that will fail before we get through with this crisis,” says the soft-spoken financier during an interview from his glass-walled offices in Midtown Manhattan.

Ross exudes an almost Zen-like personality, a trait that has brought him respect in a world that is dominated by big personalities.

“Private-equity guys tend to be huge egomaniacs, hyper-speed people like Gordon Gekko,” says Bob Profusek, head of mergers and acquisitions at law firm Jones Day, who has worked with Ross on several deals.

Gekko is the brash character played by actor Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street. “But Wilbur is calm. With him. you learn that you don’t have to pound the table to make a point.”

It is probably Ross’ contrarian nature that has allowed him to zag when others zig and why he has managed to avoid some of the large losses suffered by some of his private-equity competitors.

For instance, the once-vaunted private-equity firm Cerberus gobbled up such companies as Chrysler and GMAC in recent years, and then had to disgorge part of them when their losses mounted. Chrysler filed for bankruptcy-court protection, and GMAC was bailed out by the government last year.

Other private-equity firms, which make big, privately transacted investments in companies, have also suffered massive losses the past year — making many of them gun-shy about entering into new deals.

That isn’t a good situation for the government, which is desperately looking for private business to jump-start the economy with programs, such as the Public Private Partnership Investment Program, through which the Treasur will sell US$50 billion in bad loans.

Another federal programme, offering investors an incentive to buy up debt issued by financial institutions looking to raise capital, guaranteed that debt. Major financial institutions, from Citigroup to GE Capital, have raised more than US$300 billion that way.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said these were necessary steps “to get credit flowing again, to restore confidence in our markets, and restore the faith of the American people.”

However, the success of Geithner’s programs depended on private investors participating. “Government investment … should be replaced with private capital as soon as possible,” he said.

Ross’ private-equity firm, along with just a handful of others, took advantage of those incentives and bought government-backed securities, helping restore the market’s confidence within months.

“This was a brilliant move on Secretary Geithner’s part and really helped revive the markets much quicker than anybody anticipated,” Ross says.

The ultimate contrarian investor, Ross built his reputation after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks and the resulting economic downturn that pushed dying companies into bankruptcy in the steel, coal and textile industries.

His most famous transaction was making a US$325 million investment in bankrupt steelmaker LTV in 2002 and turning it into a US$4.5 billion sale in 2004. Ross even outmaneuvered the world’s most famous investor, Warren Buffett, when he wrested away bankrupt North Carolina textile manufacturer Burlington from Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2003.

Ross is somewhat of a late bloomer. The son of a lawyer and a school teacher, he grew up in North Bergen in New Jersey before attending Yale and Harvard Business School. While at Yale, Ross wanted to be a creative writer but gave up that dream early on. “Three weeks into the programme, I ran out of material to write,” he says.

For 26 years, Ross quietly built a reputation as a bankruptcy expert at the Rothschild family’s US business operations. On April 1, 2000, he branched out on his own and formed WL Ross with US$200 million in capital. He was 62.

Since then, Ross has surprised the world with contrarian deals totaling more than US$8 billion. Today, he also manages private capital and government-related investments for Invesco, to whom he sold his firm in 2006 for about US$375 million.

Ross continues to run his firm and make all investing decisions, while Invesco’s deeper pockets help him fish for bigger deals.

Ross married socialite Hilary Geary in 2004. They have a home in Palm Beach, and a pied-á-terre in New York — a penthouse with views of Central Park and Carnegie Hall. Ross and his wife like to entertain, and they have been featured on websites, such as New York Social Diary, which chronicle the party scene of the city’s elite.

At his home, Ross is known to drop his bland financier personality and let his impish side take hold.

“At work, he is an astute buyer of distressed assets, but at his home he’s a little bit of a prankster who likes to tell a joke at the table,” says real estate mogul Richard LeFrak, who joined Ross in purchasing bad assets from failed bank Corus.

LeFrak says he recently attended a birthday party for Ross at his home in Palm Beach, where guests were asked to wear masks. When guests arrived and found Wilbur Ross masks lying around, many of them donned those instead.

Clearly, Ross’ surprises aren’t limited to investments. — USAToday

The Pirates of MCA

Ti Lian Ker's blog was indeed an eye opener. It is a first hand infroamtion of what took place on the evening of 15th October.

It told of the machinations in the MCA, the cut and thrust maneuvers of erstwhile friends turned enemies and the blind galloping greed for power and position. This is the worse situation that has ever developed in MCA since the days of the warring factions of Neo Yee Pan versus Tan Koon Swan.

Close on the heels of the double tenth tragedy, the beleaguered President came home to a dysfunctional MCA Central Committee which reeks of of wanton greed and political debauchery. Friends who were along with him through the thick and thin of times dispose the much maligned Dr. Chua, went on selective memory mode and changed sides; opposing him instead. They wanted blood- the President's and his immediate resignation. Strangely,they would not subscribed to the principle of collective responsibility and resign honorably along with him.

At the end of the day, only 12 CC members were the Presidents loyalists. Even his close friend, the Secretary-General deserted him! Except for 6 members who were from Dr. Chua’s camp, the others have banded together to force the President’s hand.

Not to be undone, the President under siege, played his one last card-The prerogative right to call another EGM, which he did!

So, it is turmoil time once more in the MCA.

No one knows for sure how this mess will end legally. What we can see is that there is little morality in MCA. Do the Chinese want a party without any moral fibre to lead them?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Singapore: Digging further into its Coffers

By all government estimation, the future remains murky. So, Singapore will lift spending from infrastructure to education next year and maintain a similar budget deficit as in 2009. This is a less than enthusiastic sign for it meant that export-dependent Singapore continue to fear an economic rebound will not be possible without strong government support.

The government tapped reserves for the first time this year to fund part of a US$13.7 billion (RM46.23 billion) stimulus in January’s budget that was aimed at helping companies and saving jobs during the country’s worst ever recession. “We are spending a lot more next year and the coming years compared to the past. If we take infrastructure alone, we are spending more,” said a spokesman, adding "Spending is also rising on education and health-care."

He did not say how much spending would be allocated for 2010 ir how much big the fiscal deficit would be. The deficit for the fiscal year ending March 2010 will be Singapore’s largest ever at about 6 per cent of gross domestic product.

Singapore’s economy has undoubtedly rebounded, returning to year-on-year growth in the third quarter after three quarters of annual contractions, However,the government feels that the global financial system is still fragile.

“The underlining problems haven’t been resolved,” he said, pointing to fears about the extent of any economic recovery and of banks’ ability to start lending again.

“So confidence hasn’t returned to normal. We and seasoned observers all over the world do not expect the next year or two to be a very pretty one,” he said.

Singapore’s central bank kept an easy monetary stance and decided against allowing appreciation in the Singapore dollar at a twice-yearly policy review earlier this month, as it said demand in key export markets had not decisively recovered.

Policymakers around the world are debating when to remove growth-supporting policies, with the Australian central bank becoming the first G20 central bank to tighten policy as the financial crisis eases, spurring expectations others may follow.

Corporate tax revenues were expected to have been dampened this year as it was a bad year for many firms, so the government’s revenues would not rise in line with spending.

“The key issue is not merely going to be the size of fiscal year deficit that we are going to run in the next fiscal year, but the type of measures that we are going to put in place. We will be more discriminating,” said the spokesman.

It was not clear if the government would tap into its reserves again. The size of Singapore’s reserves have never been disclosed but include at least $220 billion at its two sovereign wealth funds Temasek and GIC.

“Overall I don’t expect that you will see a major shift from an expansionary fiscal stance that we have this year. It is too early to say what our fiscal position will be...we have some savings as I have indicated in the budget this year and we’ll make sure we’ll live within our means.”

Knowing self-sufficient Singapore,they will do what is expedient and prudent to accelerate growth, even if it meant going back again to take out those money squirreled away in its hidden vaults!