It's the Tajudin Ramli story again. Where did Daim find this guy?

He's embarassing! He goes around giving press conference saying he actually made MAS so successful that the price he wants to sell of RM8.00 per share is too low!

MAS shares is around RM3.80 today and will not be much higher.

Singapore Airlines by comparison is as big as MAS (in terms of no of airplanes and same route and destinations) but has nearly 20 times more market capitalisation. MAS is expected to annouce losses of at least RM500 million by end March 2001 while all other airlines in the region will announce profitability!

Tajudin boldly announced either SwissAir, KLM or Qantas is interested to acquire a stake in MAS. Not only are they NOT interested, even Brunei(through their investment agency) sold their stake in MAS and for RM4.00!

Now Tajudin goes to Daim and Daim will have to look at which RAKYAT's FUND to use to bail out this guy...and now it is understood that the Pension Trust Fund (Kumpulan Wang Amanah Pension) will be used! And would it be at RM8.00, and if so, WHY? Are we so dumb to think that this 223 million shares of MAS that he owns are going to double up soon to RM16.00?

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One might ask, "How can he possibly do it?" How does Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli effectively manage Malaysia's national airline, one of the country's largest telecommunications companies and an array of other time-consuming business ventures?

freeMalaysia knows the answer: He doesn't -- at least he doesn't do it at all well.

It couldn't have been otherwise, especially given all the other demands on his time and resources. For instance, there's all the marriages and liaisons. There's also the upkeep of his ocean-sailing yacht, the extravagant private jet and all the bag-carrying trips with Mahathir Mohamad to wave the Prime Minister's "Malaysia Inc." flag. Although the last demand – foreign and especially Third World travel with Dr. M – is certainly a distraction to managing his main businesses at hand, it's probably the best explanation for why Tajudin has survived as long as he has: He repeatedly has shown due allegiance to the boss. And that, unfortunately, is what counts most in the era of "Mahathiromics."

For Tajudin, the ball started rolling only in 1981. A relative newcomer into Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin's circle of bumiputera protégés, Tajudin quickly caught on to the potential of Daim's market-manipulating games and, more important, the rewards that await those who are invited to the table.

At the time, Tajudin was general manager of bygone UDA Merchant Bank. (Some acquaintances, however, contend that he had been hanging around earlier than 1981 at the old Daim-run Peremba office, sucking up for the opportunity to latch onto the "little man's" market-moving magic and his stock-trading network.) But once Tajudin and Daim finally clicked, the crony chemistry worked quickly.

In a characteristic lack of humility, Tajudin was among the Daim protégés and friends who submitted paeans of adulation to authors Cheong Mei Sui and Adibah Amin for the summation of their book, "Daim: The Man Behind the Enigma." He wrote: "From the first impression, I knew I could trust him (Daim). I am a very intuitive person. My first impression tends to be right."

Together, Daim and Tajudin acquired the British-owned Raleigh Cycle, which was later agglomerated into top-tier crony Vincent Tan Chee Yioun's Berjaya Group. Whether Daim ever fully severed his links to Raleigh when he was appointed Finance Minister for the first time in 1984 is hard to say. But without Tun on the day-to-day scene to ensure the company's lucrative connections, Tajudin took his profits and ran to his next Daim-designated corporate post.

The advent of the mobile phone in Malaysia might seem these days like ancient corporate history, given the ubiquity of the devices in the 1990s. And given today's cutthroat, multi-player competition within the once-closed telecom industry, it may be hard for some to recall that, in the emerging days of the technology in Malaysia, a mobile telephony license was a gold mine.

However, freeMalaysia knows better than to credit Tajudin with the foresight to recognize the potential of cellular telephones. Daim would be more deserving. For it was Daim, who used his new political muscle as Finance Minister and his Svengali-like relationship with Dr. M, to "persuade" Telekom into a nearly 50-50 partnership with Tajudin's Alpine Resources to launch the country's first truly mobile network, Cellular Communications Network (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., or Celcom.

The slow, plodding Telekom, of course, had the resources and monopoly status to launch the new service by itself; it certainly didn't need the assistance of a former merchant banker and mediocre businessman with no telecommunications experience. But that would have killed a chance for Daim and his cronies from grabbing one of Malaysia's most promising privatization awards of the decade and a gateway into the new era of communications.

In 1989, Tajudin's Technology Resources Industries (TRI) assumed its partner's startup stake in Celcom, thus capturing an effective national monopoly to expand its service for at least three years before Telekom would again be permitted, along with other providers, to enter the market. The best part was that he paid only RM4 million. Tajudin's, in short, was the only show in town; subscribe to Celcom or do without handphones.

But like so many other Daim boys, selected for many factors ahead of business prowess, the 51-year-old Tajudin simply was incapable of mastering and focusing on the new, complex business. Sure, TRI's Celcom rapidly expanded its unchallenged franchise to the point where today it still remains the largest cellular-phone provider in Malaysia. And it mattered little, as long as Celcom was the only cellular system, that the company provided shoddy service and frustrating network congestion.

Tajudin was one hot bumi businessman, with admirers lauding him as the brightest Malay corporate star produced under the New Economic Policy and its successor, the National Development Policy. And before long, he was living the role, spending more than US$10 million for a lavish yacht and jetting the globe to work his home-market magic abroad. Tajudin was to discover, however, that his charms withered beyond Malaysia's borders, without Daim and Dr. M to protect his flanks and administer his profit fixes.

By 1993, Tajudin was behaving like a Third World Rupert Murdoch of the global telecommunications industry: striking up deals with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's cronies to provide cellular service in that violence-wracked nation; negotiating with Nigeria's corruption-riddled military to set up telecommunications systems for the new capital in the country's interior; and spending (rather, wasting) US$38 million on a U.S.-based satellite company, which owned obsolete Russian satellites and orbital slots granted to the South Pacific island nation of Tonga.

A year later, with his attention-deficit disorder somewhat better controlled, Tajudin's focus returned to Malaysia. With Daim's help, he acquired the government's 32% stake in financially troubled flag carrier Malaysian Airline System. At first, he pushed all the right hype buttons about improving service, efficiency, customer satisfaction, organization, staff commitment, an upgraded fleet, etc. But he ended up ordering all the decidedly non-visionary, shortsighted, corner-cutting measures that you would expect from an accountancy-oriented investment banker with no airline experience and little hands-on business exposure.

Yes, Tajudin demanded that operating costs be slashed. This temporarily improved MAS's share price as investors anticipated some savings. But Tajudin’s ham-fisted – and in some cases, downright dangerous – money-saving ideas, set the stage for the long-term customer dissatisfaction, dismal staff morale and questionable safety standards which today plague the carrier and threaten its viability.

fM doesn't doubt for a moment that Tajudin and his handpicked manager drones approved and installed MAS’ flying-on-fumes fuel policy. Long rumored and recently confirmed, that policy violated international safety standards and left planes without sufficient fuel to cope with weather and traffic delays. The move strikes us as just another uninspired, unengaged, mush-brained decision from the one-minute manager, out to save a few ringgit from the cost of carrying safe fuel loads. Those savings now seem criminally meager, compared to the damage to the national airline's reputation and to Malaysia’s increasingly important tourism industry.

By early 1997, the part-time chief of TRI and MAS had so enraged and disgusted the staffs of both companies that they began rushing for the doors. Staff turnover at both companies has been exceptionally high, even in today's economically tight times. One key managerial loss for Tajudin was the president of Celcom, Rosli Man, a former Telekom hand, whom many industry experts believe is the single individual most deserving of the credit for making the cellular network Malaysia's No. 1, despite Tajudin's frequent and prolonged absences. With crucial departures, such as Rosli's, Celcom and MAS will increasingly fall prey to their competitors, domestic and foreign alike.

The September 1996 sale of a 21% stake in TRI to Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG for nearly RM1.4 billion, an effort to raise sorely needed funds and industry know-how, did little to ease TRI's operating straits and competitive threats. Celcom eventually became the target for no less than six upstart domestic competitors, the product of a privatized telecommunications policy run amok.

TRI's problems, however, pale in comparison with those at MAS. Acquired by Tajudin's Malaysian Helicopter Services Bhd. in October 1994 for RM1.8 billion, the national carrier remains mired in debt. So is MHS, its share price pummeled even before the onset of the Asian financial crisis.

Tajudin denies reported rumors that MAS is on the auction block, with one of the prospective buyers being Malaysia International Shipping Corp. Rather, he is confidently predicting that under his corporate-wide Salam Transformasi campaign, the carrier will return to profitability by the first quarter of next year. Perhaps. But analysts remain skeptical. They have seen Tajudin’s all-glitter, no-substance approach to corporate overhauls before.

On the other hand, if the economy truly does bounce back and if tourism recovers and if there are no more outbreaks of Nipah encephalitis and if MAS isn't forced to sell more planes and if domestic air fares are raised again and if interest rates remain at current lows and ... well, you get the point. For the one-minute manager to succeed, flying conditions must be turbulence free.

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