Minister of Finance Incorporated

Authors: Terence Gomez with Thirshalar Padmanabhan, Norfaryanti Kamaruddin, Sunil Bhalla and Fikri Fisal

Paperback

Publisher: SIRD

ISBN: 9789670960807

Price: RM45.00

This is a study of Malaysia’s new political economy, with a focus on ownership and control of the corporate sector. It offers a pioneering assessment of government-linked investment companies (GLICs), a type of state-owned institution that has long prevailed in the corporate sector but has not been analysed. Malaysia’s history of government-business ties is unique, while the nature of the nexuses between the state and the corporate sector has undergone major transitions. Corporate power has shifted from the hands of foreign firms to the state to the ruling party, and well-connected businessmen, and back to the state. Corporate wealth is now heavily situated in the leading publicly-listed government-linked companies (GLCs), controlled through block shareholdings by a mere seven GLICs under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Finance. To indicate why these GLICs are important actors in Corporate Malaysia, this study provides a deep assessment of their ownership and control of Bursa Malaysia’s top 100 publicly-listed enterprises.

"By focusing on GLICs, Minister of Finance Incorporated ignites new debates around the role of the government in the Malaysian economy. Through excellent academic research, novel insights are provided about the old question of ownership and control of Corporate Malaysia. Terence Gomez, and his team, further the research on government-business ties, enhancing our knowledge of GLICs by mapping out their corporate influence. This highly thought-provoking book offers timely and considered analysis of the concentration of power in the office of the Minister of Finance" - Elsa Lafaye de Micheaux, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies (Paris), Rennes 2 University

"Minister of Finance Incorporated is an authoritative and meticulous account of changes in ownership and control of Malaysian corporations. The study traces the receding role of politicians in publicly-listed companies and the remarkable concentration of economic power in the office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance and its holding company, MoF Inc., along with six other GLICs. Minister of Finance Incorporated’s scrupulously empirical X-ray of Corporate Malaysia is presented in a lucid, well-organized and fluent manner" - Jan Nederveen Pieterse, University of California, Santa Barbara