1 April 2016 : Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia - Cooking up controversial flying letters and poison pen as a method to down play other players in classic board room fight has become day to day routine for one public listed company Protasco Bhd, a shame in capital market where extensive abuse of public resources for one man's personal greed & benefits allowed to happen for over 2 years, and authorities were tosted around snifting on small ticket conspiracies manufactured by Protasco hired gun men, count one of the key suspect Tan Yee Boon as one of the culprit, like fools. The producer of such shameful corporate drama is believed to be the Managing Director Chong Ket Pen.

Chong Ket Pen was a salaried government servant for most of his career life (for over 30 years), and together with Hasnur, both from JKR, hand picked by legendary business rain maker aka beneficial owner of Protasco, to safeguard Protasco Bhd. Protasco which held majority controlling stake in Roadcare, the concession holding company with exceptionally fat federal and state road maintenance contracts, was the brain child of the "rain maker, the real boss behind". Chong and Hasnur were gate keepers for the boss, as evidence from Chong's consistent failure in most of his own projects in Protasco, such as Libya and Syria, on top of his boss legacy which kept Protasco business alive. It won't be surprise Chong miss carried the Indonesia oil project given his past records. It's obviously a disastrous miss carriage singlely failed by Chong. He was the only Executive Director in Protasco, which is the only rightful person to run the project.

Protasco went IPO in year 2003, where both Chong and Hasnur were employees, holding less than 5% shares. Subsequently as per the boss rewarded them (with shares), and later Hasnur was played out, followed by series of Executive Director replacements in year 2012, Chong until the exit of the boss by selling the controlling shares to 2 investors, namely Tey Por yee & Ooi Kwok Aun aka the new beneficial owners of Protasco, Chong only holds about 13% as of November 2012. 

Questions were flying around bankers mind on how did the boss’ salaried staff Chong Ket Pen able to purchase 13% Protasco shares, where he only draws RM50,000 monthly salary even until the 2 new owners took over Protasco in November 2012. That 13% would worth RM40million at that time. Even more bizarre when Chong purchases another 12% from another ex boss proxy, which cost about RM50milion at the transaction time, tax department IRB and SPRM Anti Corruption officer (aka MACC) raised their eye brows. Where did a salaried gate keeper gets the money from?

When market observers raise Chong's source of fund questions, the business media already raised question of the ultra fat concession contracts, linked to questionable accounting practices in Protasco. Malaysia Focus wrote 2 articles during year 2014-2015 questioning Protasco other expenses and contractors abnormal margin compared to other similar players. There is apparently questionable huge gap. That RM80 million "other expenses" together with above industry average of RM200 million per year extra margin had raised public eye brows. Perhaps Chong would swear he does not take anything from the ex boss drawer, despite his capability to "play everyone out" and possess a national interest asset which belongs to the people of the country. Road maintenance concessions were paid from citizens of Malaysia hard earn tax money, can Chong explain himself out where the billions of Ringgit extra fats go?

The authorities probe is not without reason when series of flying letters and abuse of legal system using public listed company resources linked to Chong and his close associates to achieve his possession of Protasco was discovered. Market perceives Chong though he owns Protasco, the public listed company, as if his own. His sons Chong Ther Nen and so on, were all employed to safeguard "their father's company". He totally forgot or ignored it's a public listed company owned by "all" public shareholders.

The most mind blowing joke in financial market is, while Chong gives peanut dividend to majority of the public shareholders, cheer leaders seems pretend that Chong is generous as if they are on drug to believe so, while they have yet to see the true faces behind the mask they though they knew. "The missing money from the extra ordinary high margin contracts went missing every year, which could have paid perhaps 500% more dividend to shareholders. Where did those money goes? Did Chong took pieces of those money? If not, where is his money coming from as a salaried guy which is able to play out his the previous owners and buy up the company shares? It won't be surprise authorities are getting deeper leading into these trails." commented a senior officer.

Market is also nervous if Chong would be answerable to the last 13 years of missing profit margins, which could be in billions of Ringgit. If such conspiracy is true, would the probe of authority lead to Protasco being responsible to pay back the "tax evasion" gap, perhaps in billions of Ringgit? Does this means protasco which is unable to pay such, would be owing IRB RM10 per shares tax, or perhaps Protasco would be owned by IRB by converting debt into equity? Perhaps the hundred million worth "salaried guy" Chong Ket Pen may need to repay his debt to Protasco by surrendering his Protasco shares to the IRB as well. Such "nationalization" accounting method is not new in other capital markets. Perhaps what comes along goes along. The gate keeper would need to top up the missing pennies he picked up from the safe.

Investors would never know who are the real culprits of the billion Ringgit conspiracy, which made any other Bursa Malaysia PLC problems "dwarf". But they sure know Chong being the only Executive Director during year 2012 - 2014 after the transition from ex boss to new bosses, this is the period of dark age of Protasco where no governance were put in place by major shareholders of the company. Perhaps Chong setup and play out of his bosses facilitated his plan to put a finger on missing taxes he always dream of. The real show is here to stay, and when it hits the ceiling, perhaps the investors in drug (which in hope of the petty dividend) would one day woke up finding their shares owe the country RM10 per share. That is a huge dividend, but sorry, it's not for the investors but for the country.

PCN Reports - 1 Apr 2016