Since the PAC sessions last week yielded no big issues and the auditors fully defended the accuracy of their audit and said they had engaged independent valuers for 1MDB's cayman assets and stand by their judgement, The Edge have started "exposing" Jho Low's past business deals.
It appears The Edge is saying that Jho Low had made the cardinal sin of making money from doing business (gosh!) and exposed all these deals that Jho Low did in 2007 and 2008 -before PM Najib.
Oh no!! Jho Low used Off-shore companies together with very rich and very credible investors and business partners to make lots of money before 1MDB existed or before Najib became PM !! WTF!!!
In this issue, The Edge exposes how Jho Low used off-shore companies to buy a controlling stake in three Malaysian listed companies, UBG group, Loh & Loh Bhd and Putrajaya Perdana in the years 2007 and 2008 and how he partnered with "shady" Arab individuals.
Firstly, The Edge has essentially confirmed that Jho Low has made lots and lots of money even before 1MDB even was in existence or had money and even before Najib became Finance Minister (Nov 2008) and PM (Apr 2009).
Secondly, The Edge also confirms that Jho Low has been doing business with very rich individuals from the Middle East even as early as 2007-2008.
One of the "shady" names that The Edge mentions was a Jho Low partner in the take-over of all these listed companies is one Yousef Al Otaiba whom The Edge casually mentions is "a private citizen in the UAE who had served as UAE ambassador to the USA and Mexico" and was on the board of UBG after Jho Low's venture company took over.
Except that HE Yousef is no ordinary UAE citizen!
As mentioned by the Edge, he is ambassador to the USA and is also in the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s court
Yousef is also the son of Dr Mana Al Otaiba who is the first oil minister for the UAE and was the Personal Adviser to the president, which he remained until the death of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, after which he became the Private Advisor to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Dr Mana is also the major shareholder in Abu Dhabi Group, a company with holdings in real estate, banking, Islamic banking, telecommunication, ISP, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, hotels and tourism, as well as being a major shareholder in Dana Gas, the first regional private-sector natural gas company in the Middle East. He also owns Maissoune, a Moroccan business venture that has a significant presence in the Morocco.
Yes HE Yousef Al Otaiba is a very very rich and very connected individual with deep family links to the Royal family and govt.
The other "shady" individual that The Edge casually mentions as a business partner of Jho Low is one Shaher Mohamed Ali Al-Awartani.
Well, Shaher is the founder and owner of the Silver Coast Construction & Boring, a company which is specializing in infrastructure construction of water, sewer and gas pipelines.
As Silver Coast is a private company and I have yet to find revenue figures for this company, I do suspect it is also very big.
Why? Because in 2009, Sunway construction went into a 60:40 JV partnership with Silver Coast to deliver a RM1.8 billion project. This is disclosed in Sunway's Bursa Malaysia filing:
Thirdly, The Edge had also confirmed that Jho Low has been using off-shore companies to do legitimate business with very wealthy and connected Arab business partners even before 1MDB or PetroSaudi deals happened. So, nothing new here.
It seems that the more The Edge is "exposing" Jho Low, the more credibility it is giving him as a legitimate businessman who is already proven successful with business relationships and making hundreds of millions prior to 1MDB or PM Najib and any possible involvement with 1MDB would have been on profitable business ventures too instead of songlap.
The Edge should continue to meroyan and expose" as their relentless crusade to vilify is starting to look very silly and desperate.
No comments:
Post a Comment