Tajudin Ramli has emerged as the latest corporate mogul to come under the axe during a renewed government drive to clean up heavily-indebted but politically linked entities.

The tycoon risks losing his business empire after a High Court Friday rejected his bid to block bad debt agency Pengurusan Danaharta from selling his shares in Technology Resources Industries (TRI).

The TRI shares were held as collateral by Danaharta against Tajudin's personal debts of RM1.315 billion, which went sour during the Asian financial crisis.

TRI, which owns Malaysia's second-largest cellular phone operator Celcom, is one of the last bastions of Tajudin's business empire after he exited from loss-making Malaysia Airlines (MAS) last year.

The ex-banker is the latest to fall from grace among associates of former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, who quit last June amid talks of a rift with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Daim's boys as they were known were a coterie of Malay Malaysian businessmen handpicked by Umno to counterbalance the minority Chinese Malaysian domination of corporate Malaysia.

Since Mahathir took over the finance ministry, analysts say there has been a renewed move to revamp large debt-laden entities but that the exercise has so far appeared to target specifically Daim's boys.

The government took over the country's most indebted conglomerate, Renong, in July last year and removed its controlling shareholder and chairman Halim Saad, a Daim protege.

Abdul Rahman Maidin, another Daim's associate, lost his executive chairman's post at troubled Malaysian Resources Corp while Azmi Wan Hamzah quietly relinquished his post at Land and General citing health reasons.

Tajudin controversially sold his stake in MAS back to the government at a price more than twice the prevailing market value, a deal endorsed then by Daim and widely seen as a bail-out.

Lost cause

But unlike compatriot Halim, he remains in the corporate limelight with TRI and has vowed to fight on by appealing against the High Court's decision.

"It is a lost cause for Tajudin. He has lost the first battle and things do not look favourable for him," said a senior analyst with a local brokerage.

The analyst, who declined to be named, noted that other Daim associates had left the corporate scene quietly but Tajudin raised eyebrows by seeking legal action against Danaharta.

"He is being recalcitrant but he cannot win the war against the powers-that-be. It's all a question of politics," he added.

Tajudin is also at the centre of a police probe into alleged management irregularities at MAS.

The legal wrangle with Danaharta has sparked uncertainty over the future of TRI, which is in the middle of restructuring RM3.8 billion in debts. The company has said the exercise was still on track.

But there is yet hope for Tajudin, who was given 30 days by Danaharta on Friday to pay RM130 million for his rights shares entitlement under the debt revamp plan that would keep him in control.

Tajudin's 24 percent stake in TRI, out of which 17 percent is vested in Danaharta, will shrink to nine percent if he cannot take up the rights shares.

State-controlled Telekom Malaysia is meanwhile waiting in the wings to bid for the TRI shares in Danaharta.

Tajudin still has a card up his sleeve— his aviation firm Naluri Bhd is sitting on a RM1.8 billion cash pile following the MAS sale last year.

But he may have a problem as nearly 45 percent of his stake in Naluri is also vested with Danaharta.

His attempt to use the money to restructure TRI was earlier rejected by the Securities Commission but the funds may be his last hope as the former corporate high-flyer fights for survival. (AFP)