KUALA LUMPUR – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had courted BlackRock Inc in 2018 when he was prime minister in Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) government.
His social media history records a briefing he gave to fund managers from investment firms including the New York-based company accused of supporting genocide by Israel on Palestinians.
At the meeting, organised by HSBC in London, Dr Mahathir who was then-prime minister for the second time, highlighted Malaysia’s investment prospects, according to his post on October 1, 2018, on X (formerly Twitter).
A news report on his programme states that he also met British investors and fund managers at that meeting as part of his working visit to the United Kingdom in late September that year.
The same month, Khazanah Nasional held a megatrends forum at which BlackRock’s then global head of active equities Mark Wiseman was listed as a speaker. Wiseman at the time was also chairman of BlackRock Alternative Investors.
BlackRock has hardly made major headlines in Malaysia until now because of its ownership of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) which is taking up equity in Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) in a privatisation exercise.
GIP’s equity in the airport operator will be 30% held together with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority through GIPAurea Pte Ltd.
The Malaysian government will still retain special share rights in MAHB through Khazanah Nasional Bhd via its wholly-owned subsidiary UEM Group Bhd, and the Employees Provident Fund.
GIP’s head of transport Philip Iley said BlackRock had not in any way been involved in the MAHB deal. BlackRock’s acquisition of GIP was announced in January and will only be completed in the third quarter of this year.
Under fire for allowing a BlackRock-owned entity in the MAHB deal, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has referred to a bigger economic picture and the burden of past decisions he did not make.
He said today there are companies with ties to BlackRock in states throughout the country and in the stock market.
The government cannot afford to stop dealings with every Israel-linked company based in other countries, as this would affect the national economy, he said, while warning against using the Palestinians’ plight to score political points.
But with companies based in Israel, Anwar said he had stopped Malaysia’s direct dealings with them. This includes ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd, whose ships and containers have been banned from entering Malaysia since December.
Anwar said it was Dr Mahathir who allowed Israeli ships to dock in the country since 2002, and it was the PH government that banned the company.
In December, after the ban on ZIM ships and containers, Dr Mahathir said his Barisan Nasional administration in 2002 had allowed ZIM to dock at Malaysia’s ports as it was hoped the Israel-Palestine conflict would be resolved by a peace process at the time.
However, the former two-time prime minister also recently criticised the sale of MAHB stakes to an “American company that supports Israel”. – June 21, 2024