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like thisost Malaysians know YTL Corporation. Take the high-speed train from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the heart of the capital – YTL made it. Make a phone call in the country and it may be on YTL’s network. Its subsidiaries operate luxury resorts, develop land and manufacture cement. But tell them it supplies water to south-west England and it may surprise some in the south-east Asian nation.
In 2002, bust US energy trader Enron sold 100% of Wessex Water to Wessex Water, a subsidiary of YTL Corp, for around £545m plus £695m of Wessex debt. The Malaysian company saw its investment as the start of an expansion into Europe, although for its chairman, Francis Yeoh, it was something more.
When the then Prince Charles knighted Yeh in 2019, the businessman credited studying civil engineering at Kingston University in the late 1970s for YTL’s growth. “In Britain, a real premium is a transparent, consistent regulatory framework, where the rule of law is the order of the day,” Yeoh was quoted as saying in the 2018 book Power Talk: Insights from Leading Entrepreneurs in Asia. At a Malaysian government forum in 2014, Yeo explained his preference for working in countries such as Britain, Singapore and Australia. “The good thing about these three regions is, I don’t need to kowtow to the prime minister before I do a deal, I don’t need to see him even after I win a deal,” he said.
However, when the Guardian tried to reach the 68-year-old Yeoh to ask about the pollution of English waters, his daughter Rebeccah Yeoh Pei Wen, YTL director of corporate finance, said he was unavailable to discuss the topic “as we approach Quarterly Board Meetings”.
After contacting by phone, the Guardian went to the YTL Power office in Kuala Lumpur – one of YTL’s numerous hotels, the Ritz-Carlton, to ask if it was possible to speak to someone there about the water company. A receptionist confirmed “YTL owns Wessex Water, but the staff are in the UK, you’ll have to speak to them.” When followed up by the Guardian by email, he was told politely but firmly that the chairman was unavailable. , adding: “We wish you the best of luck with the article.”
Yeo took over YTL in 1980 from his father, the late billionaire Yeoh Tiong Lay, whose initials form the company’s name. Forbes ranked him 17th on its list of the 50 richest people in Malaysia in 2022, with a net worth of $1.25bn (£1.04bn), which he shares with his six siblings.
An evangelical Christian, his apparent Twitter account features Bible texts, family videos, and salutes to the late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who revels on the Malaysian coast.
In February 2021, he tweeted: “YTL is listed on KLSE [Malaysia’s stock exchange] In 1986, we had total assets of USD20m. Today we are blessed with global assets of USD20b. This is miraculous!”
BlackRock: ‘We are engaged … but it is not the role of minority investors to direct these companies’
Every January, Larry Fink sends a letter to the world’s chief executives. Few of them can ignore it.
The billionaire investor is chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and a company that oversees an investment portfolio worth more than $10tn at the start of the year – twice Japan’s annual economic output.
In recent years, Fink, 70, has been deeply concerned with the environment and has become one of the most prominent proponents of “stakeholder capitalism”—the idea that a successful business must take into account all its “stakeholders”—employees, customers. , partners, society and the environment, and not just this quarter’s profit.
Not that Fink sees shareholder capitalism as antithetical to profit making—far from it. “Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke.’ There is power,” Fink wrote in his 2022 letter.
Most of BlackRock’s equity is held by holding funds that track stock market indices by buying shares in the companies that make up those indices, thus becoming a major shareholder in the English and Welsh water utility markets.
Blackrock has significant investments in Severn Trent, which was fined £1.5m last year for dumping sewage, South West Water, which is being investigated for dumping raw sewage, and United Utilities.
BlackRock makes alliances with the companies in which it invests and publishes a report on those alliances. The report shows that the investor has tied up with Severn Trent, United Utilities and Panon, of which Bristol Water and South West Water are subsidiaries. It did not detail the specifics of that conversation but, according to its guidelines, the conversation is about “pursuing sustainable long-term value.” “We believe companies that consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities are better positioned to deliver long-term value,” the guide states.
Asked about alarming reports and allegations of environmental damage from its investments, a BlackRock spokesperson said: “As a minority investor on behalf of our clients, we engage with publicly listed UK water companies on governance and material sustainability risks. However, it is not the role of minority investors to direct these companies – this role is the responsibility of their management teams with appropriate board oversight and as determined by their regulator.”
CK: No answer
In addition to being the richest man in Hong Kong, former chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings Li Ka-shing, 94, also enjoys an almost mythical status in the city.
He is known for owning a factory specializing in the production of plastic flowers and other plastic goods in the 1950s, progressing from a watchmaking apprenticeship.
After that, Li moved into real estate, port operations, retail and telecommunications, and over the decades consolidated his position as the most influential businessman in Hong Kong.
Lee’s self-made reputation is woven into Hong Kong’s own “Lion Rock Spirit” myth, which attributes its economic growth from coastal village to international finance hub to diligence.
Today, Lee’s businesses in Hong Kong have almost total reach into the daily lives of its residents: the supermarkets they shop at, their cellular provider and the more than 100 housing projects where they live.
The tycoon’s influence is reflected in a widespread joke that Lee has the power to divert typhoons so as not to disrupt work and production in Hong Kong. Among the citizens of Hong Kong, he is nicknamed “Superman”.
CK Hutchison Holdings is active in nearly 50 countries, employing more than 300,000 people worldwide. The corporation operates 52 ports in 26 countries, owns telecom networks in Europe and has interests in Australian gas and Dutch energy. Among its many interests is Northumbrian Water in England, which was fined more than £500,000 last year for wastewater pollution and is being investigated by Ofwat as part of a larger look at ongoing issues in the sector.
This summer, CK Infrastructure sold 25% of the company, which supplies water to 2.7 million people in the north-east of England, to New York-listed private equity firm KKR for £867m.
The Guardian contacted CK Infrastructure and asked why it bought the English water company; Does he still regard English water as a good investment, and what responsibility do Lee Ka-shing and CK Infrastructure have to water systems in England and to the English public? However, despite several representations, no response was received.
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