Business tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary - a close associate of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad - has bought a 20 percent stake in the bestselling Malay daily Utusan Malaysia .

According to Singapore Straits Times , this is the 51-year-old businessman's second major investment in a newspaper. The first was in the country's leading English daily The Star , owned by Chinese-based political party MCA.

His RM400 million worth of shares in the daily were forcibly sold in 1998 - at the height of the regional financial crisis - by his bankers when he failed to provide extra collateral on loans taken.