Yii disagrees with Pua on FashionValet venture: 'Can't shoot blindly'

DAP Youth chief Dr Kelvin Yii today said he disagreed with party veteran Tony Pua’s views on FashionValet Sdn Bhd, adding there were red flags in the government’s investment in the company.

Responding to a Malaysiakini post on X, the Bandar Kuching MP said issues included FashionValet’s initial inflated value as well as lack of monitoring and accountability over the years.

“Cannot just give a huge sum of money and allow one to shoot blindly without accountability at the guise of ‘high-risk VC investment’,” Yii (above) said.

Yesterday, Pua said bad investments like FashionValet are part of known risks when it comes to making capital venture investments, as there will always be more failures than successes in such cases.

He was commenting on the backlash against FashionValet over a RM44 million loss that Khazanah Nasional and Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) suffered.

The government-linked investment companies paid RM47 million for a minority stake in the local fashion firm in 2018 and sold off their shares to NXBT Partners Sdn Bhd for RM3.1 million in 2023.

However, Yii conceded that Pua made some good points.

He said emotions must be set aside when discussing this issue and that investigations must focus on accountability and governance aspects.

“(This) cannot be a witch hunt which may stifle future venture capital ecosystems,” he warned.

In a statement last Friday, FashionValet co-founders Vivy Yusof and her husband Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar said they would step down from the company.

The company is now being probed by the MACC while Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has ordered Khazanah to conduct an internal probe.

Meanwhile, Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung agreed with Yii, calling for Khazanah to clear the public’s doubts.

In a post on X, Lee said Khazanah must justify its reasons for investing in FashionValet and why the sovereign wealth fund did not back out earlier.

“If investing in a basket of high-risk tech companies (is) bound to have losers, then show us who are the winners?” he asked.

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