Khazanah's Board Of Directors Allegedly Resigned To Let Tun M Decide Who Gets To Stay

"This is done in order to facilitate a smooth and orderly transition under the new government," Khazanah said in a press statement dated today. 

The directors also felt it was fitting to allow the Pakatan Harapan government to form the new Board of Directors for Khazanah.

The Straits Times reported senior government officials and financial executives close to the situation as saying that the mass resignation was intended to let Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad decide who should stay or leave the sovereign wealth fund.

Mahathir criticised Khazanah weeks ago when he claimed that the sovereign wealth fund had strayed from its objectives, and became a "convenient vehicle" for the previous Barisan Nasional administration to reward officials with positions in the wealth fund.

Khairy explained that under Mahathir's first tenure as the Prime Minister, Khazanah was a holding entity for the government's stake in companies, and it had no strategic role.

Nonetheless, Khazanah had been transformed into a strategic investment arm tasked with increasing the country's asset value, and recruited the "best and brightest Malaysians" to achieve so.

"It would be a shame to dismantle everything that has been built only to replace it with the business (model) of the 1990s," the Rembau MP wrote, in reference to the mass resignation.

"My fear: GLCs (government-linked companies) will be broken up and flogged off to a new set of 1990-esque businessmen," Khairy added.