Who is the “30-something Penang-born businessman” that sold TMI?
How could he be considered as having close tie with BN leadership when TMI was spinning news against BN and giving voice to the oppositions?
Another Brick in the Wall
On June 9th, 2014, TMI CEO Jahabar Sadiq tweeted:
“Good morning TwitterJaya –> The Malaysian Insider@tm_insider is now part of The Edge Media Group”.
It confirmed the wind Rocky Bru posted something before it was finalised.
TMI confirmed in their report of their merger with the Edge [read TMI here]. Jahabar told The Star [read here] that said everything remain the same but only a different shareholders.
The Malay Mail Online also confirmed it [read here]. For MMO, it has its relevence because former Executive Director, Leslie Lau, Managing Director for MMO, Joan Lau and core editorial left TMI for MMO on June 2013 [read The Star here]. They claimed there will be a change in direction.
No mention of the seller.
Back in July 23rd, this blog wrote a posting based statement by JMM’s Azwanuddin Hamzah [read here] that a company owned by Dato Kalimullah Hassan financed TMI. The company secured contracts from Inland Revenue Board and the profit was used to finance left leaning TMI. [Read more in AIDC here].
Kalimullah denied it [read Mkini here]. The link and editorial favoured Khairy so much that it is hard to believe. Knowing Azwanuddin is under the payroll of the new Kalimullah for Dato Najib, Kalimullah may have spoken the truth.
Azwanuddin is among the paid mouthpieces for the so-called media strategist Dato Habibur Rahman but lack credential or credibility to speak. Habibur is also owner of Fuel Card Sdn Bhd which was highlighted by this blog several times.
The real owner of TMI can be trailed to a Wikipedia posting on The Malaysian Insider [read here]. The extract reads:
TMI was started in December 2007 by a group of businessmen and journalists close to then Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as a counterbalance against MalaysiaKini, which was deemed to be unfriendly to the Barisan Nasional (BN).
But after Abdullah stepped down in 2009, the group stopped the financing and the TMI top management, after talking to several people, eventually got funding with help from a 30-something Penang-born businessman with close ties to the current BN leadership.[4]
Who could that 30-something Penang-born businessman be? How could he be considered as having close tie with BN leadership when TMI was spinning news against BN and giving voice to the oppositions?
If the person had been Taek Jho Loh, it would be interesting.
In June 2014, Jho Loh had a deal with Dato Tong Kooi Ong. Come February 2015, they are suing each other [read FMT here and Uppercaise here].
By May 2015, Tong turnaround to help divert attention from Jho Loh to the Board of Directors.
