KINIBIZ In the corporate jungle, Tiger goes by a number of rules. One of these is a simple one - if you don’t know what to do with a company you want to take over, then stay an investor and keep the stake below a level at which you don’t have to acquire a majority interest in the company.

If you do acquire majority control and ruffle feathers and more, and if top staff leave in droves, then be prepared to put your own people in at the apex, restore confidence and run the company as good or better than before.

SP Setia is Malaysia’s foremost property company and perhaps equally as famous is its president and CEO and one-time major shareholder Liew Kee Sin, widely credited with building up the company from scratch.

Unlike many other Malaysian tycoons, Liew and associates, the main ones of whom are Voon Tin Yow (currently his deputy at SP Setia) and Teow Leong Seng (chief financial officer), somehow did not keep majority control of SP Setia but steadily decreased their stakes. Both Voon and Teow are SP Setia directors.

That puzzled Tiger. Why would they do that?

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This article was written by P Gunasegaram.