Sunday, August 30, 2015

Mass protests sweep Malaysian capital as anger at Goldman-backed slush fund boils over...

If we told you that thousands of protesters donning bright yellow shirts had taken to the streets to call for the ouster of a leader in an important emerging market, you’d be forgiven for thinking we were talking about Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff is facing calls for impeachment amid allegations of fiscal book cooking and government corruption.

But on this particular weekend, you’d be wrong.

We’re actually talking about Malaysia, where tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Razak whose government has been accused of obstructing an investigation into how some $700 million from 1Malaysia Development Berhad mysteriously ended up in Najib’s personal bank account.

You really cannot make this stuff up.

What Goldman did, apparently, is arrange for three private placements, one for $3 billion and two for $1.75 billion each back in 2013 and 2012, respectively. Goldman bought the bonds for its own book at 90 cents on the dollar with plans to sell them later at a profit (more here from FT). Somewhere in all of this, $700 million allegedly landed in Najib’s bank account and the going theory is that 1MDB is simply a slush fund.

So you can see why some folks are upset, especially considering Rosmah has a habit of having, how shall we say, rich people problems, like being gouged $400 for a home visit by a personal hairstylist. Here’s The New York Times with more on the protests: Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Malaysia blocks protesters' website on eve of mass rally...
  3. The music has stopped in Malaysia...
  4. MALAYSIA'S NAJIB IN DEEP TROUBLE: World media suspect him of...
  5. MH370 families question Malaysian evidence
  6. Malaysians seek currency havens as crisis grows...
  7. Facing corruption scandal, Malaysian PM fires officials investigating him...

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