VICOM

[weijian]

i hope that VICOM will not venture into malaysian's VI sector... definitely a troublesome/loss-making venture! :O

hi brattzz,

I know most VICOM OPMIs love the stable cashflow from VI/SETSCO businesses (me inclusive). They form the basis for the predictable and sustainable dividends that we enjoy.

All startups are loss-making, until they are not (ie. when they have enough scale). There is nothing wrong to avoid losses. But if one were to try to avoid losses all the time, then one will also miss most opportunities for gains. This is true as an investor or an entrepreneur. Even an employee has to first give his/her time, before getting paid at the end of the month (abeit with more certainty than an investor/entrepreneur though!)

When we look at many of the local towkays, many of them have already ventured out into our ASEAN neighbours (especially Vietnam and Malaysia). As OPMIs, these gives us further exposure to faster growing economies.

Yes, venturing alone into an industry that is complicated with politics is dangerous and troublesome. After all, Puspakom was protected for 2 decades and the ultimate major owner is the richest Bumiputra in Malaysia. No surprises that the Msian Manpower minister had to come out openly and say that bumi jobs will not be affected with the on-going dismantling of all the monopolies by the Anwar Ibrahim administration. But there are many ways to mitigate this risk, the most obvious one being to partner with a small local tycoon who provides the locality expertise, while VICOM provides the technical expertise. After all, they were the consultants 20 years ago!

I personally hope the VICOM mgt will do a serious feasibility study at least as there is plenty of time before the licenses are open for application. Of course, this is just an OPMI's view