Business Baron Loy

By Yunus Rashid

TTTThen Malaysia’s MBf took

\IL/ over Carpenters Fiji

▼ ▼ Limited, Australian-owned and the country’s largest retailer, the local media was invited to a press con ference with the man behind the $BO - investment. Organisers of the press conference in Fiji’s capital, Suva, repeatedly reminded the reporters that the president and chief executive of the multinational business empire, Loy Hean Heong, be referred to as Tan Sri a title bestowed on the billionaire by the Sultan of Johor in Malaysia.

Perhaps this insistence was the first insight reporters had of the man they were going to haul questions at.

Voluminous annual reports given out prior to the conference had already provided a visual image of the man - a smartly dressed and smiling Loy, who looked a bit too young to be master of this expanding and diversifying busi ness now making definite inroads into the Pacific.

The question many were asking was: ‘who exactly is Loy’, the man whose brainchild, MBf, had come under criti cism in Malaysia and South Australia.

Who is this man who was born poor and is today a billionaire? What made him so successful ?

In Fiji, only a selected few are in a position to shed light on what makes the man tick. One such man is MBf Carpenters’ new deputy managing director, Kalivati Bakani.

Bakani first made contact with Loy when he was deputy general manager at National Bank of Fiji which resulted in NBF and MBf jointly agreeing to finance a credit card in 1990. He moved to Carpenters when MBf bought out the more-than-a-century old business from its Australian owners.

Bakani described Loy as an "ener getic, innovative, and youthful” man who drove himself with a degree of "ruthlessness” and expected his work ers to follow suit. "Many people who do not know Loy would perceive him as a man who cares for nothing but expanding and making more money.

But the truth is that he is a very family-

oriented man whose entire operation is based on a family concept,” Bakani said.

Loy is generous with bonuses for employees who work hard and is not

tolerant of lazy people.

Tan Sri Loy is a people-oriented man. He likes to see young people prosper and learn and he likes to see collective success. He has already mooted the idea of a family day for Carpenters MBf. And I was quite sur prised when I got invited to his home and realised that he lived with his extended family,” Bakani said.

Loy is described as a " down-to earth” person who does not flaunt his wealth.'' He drives cars manufactured by his company and, as much as possi ble, uses items his companies produce.

His concept is that if goods produced in his factories are good for the con sumers than they are good for him too”.

During the press conference, Loy

Malaysia’s MBf is making its presence felt in the Pacific, especially with the recent acquisition of Fiji’s Carpenters group of companies. But the man behind the venture, Tan Sri Loy, continues to be an enigma.

exhibited his flair for handling the media, being selective in which ques tions he would dwell at length upon, which ones required only a curt reply and which he merely shrugged off. In response to a question on allegations of misappropriation made against .his company in Malaysia, Loy ‘s reply was: '' Its before the courts and I can’t com ment on that”.

Loy and his company have been, to some extent,hounded by media as they try to unravel the machinations of his empire. The Australian Financial Review has said: “It is hard to believe this suave and immaculately dressed man, president and CEO of Kuala Lumpur-based MBf and chairman of the Mastercard board in New York, once staved off hunger with rats, monkeys and, yes, the family cat”.

Reuters reported that Loy did not get the respect he expected in Malaysia and financial analysts describe MBf’s financial records as “unanalysable’.

L oy recently moved the base of MBf’s overseas operations to Hong Kong and injected them into MBF Asia Capital Corp, a company that will soon seek a New York listing.

Loy was born in Penang, Malaysia in 1936. After graduating from technical school in the mid-’3os, Loy was enlisted in the British Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Corps in Malaysia. He left the army in 1939 to establish his own business - repairing cars and farm machinery. He later ven tured into plantation and property' development by borrowing 10,000 ringgit (A 55,273) from friends in 1964.

The property business earned Loy his first million. This was the beginning of his success story . Loy established Central Securities (Holdings) Berhad

Group - a linchpin of a multinational enterprise dealing in everything from condoms and cars to condominiums and credit cards - and, in the early ‘7os acquired Pacific Development Credit Berhad Group, now MBf Holdings Berhad of which he is president and chief executive.

Like any good businessman, Loy smelt out opportunities and over 30 years has spread his operations into 17 countries, employing 20,000. The com pany’s assets are estimated at $7 bil lion. In recognition of his achievement in the business arena, Mastercard International invited him to join its international Board of the Asia-Pacific region in 1991 The following year he was invited to become a member of the Global Auditing Committee.

The purchase of Carpenters by MBf means Carpenters, which had strictly South Pacific operations, will expand into the Asian market and to other Pacific island nations which do not cur rently enjoy Carpenters services.

MBf’s plans for Fiji include a $4O mil lion five-star hotel, and other projects such as a printing outfit, a white goods assembly plant which should all materi alise in the not too distant future.

Carpenters managers have been asked to increase profits by 30 percent through streamlining operations and implementing new cost-cutting strate gies.

Loy has made it quite clear that MBf is in the Pacific to stay. It has made a grand entrance into the Pacific with the $ 110-million dollar investment in Fiji. Tonga, Western Samoa and Papua New Guinea have also seen Loy invest ing millions of dollars in setting up MBf branches.

Malaysian business tycoon Loy