News Reports 2003|
News Reports 2003 |
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MANY words have been used to describe T. Ananda Krishnan - enigmatic, daring, bold, shrewd, down-to-earth - the list goes on. Fortune magazine, in a 2001 article, aptly called him "Kuala Lumpur's Mr Big". With both his hands in many cookie jars, he has chartered his name, not only in Malaysia, but across the continents. Said to have an extraordinary entrepreneurial flair and inventiveness, He progressed to gaming in Malaysia, stud farming in Australia, running cartoon animation studios in California and Manila, and making a series of investments in private companies from Hong Kong to the Channel Islands. Diversity was his motto. He got involved in the multimedia industry in the early 90s and developed other interests in entertainment, satellite, oil, power, shipping, telecommunications, property and gaming. He has a string of multiplex theatres in Malaysia which offers movies on the bigger screen. His entertainment company holds more than 800 movie titles. He also owns the world's largest Chineselanguage movie library, Celestial Pictures. Today, Ananda has businesses spread all over the globe, including the United States and Japan. His businesses are varied. In the Philippines, he produced children's Here at home, he is probably most known as the key force behind the
building of the world's tallest structure, which is also one of the His little black book includes names like Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch and Maurice Greenberg, not to mention veteran rock star Sir Bob Geldof, with whom he mounted the Live Aid charity concert in 1985 in London and Philadelphia to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine victims. Dominic Armstrong, head of regional research for ABN AMRO, was quoted in an interview as saying: "It's not so much Malaysia that you're backing, it's Ananda. He is a worldclass businessman who happens to be Malaysian." Now, Malaysia's richest man, who was reported by Fortune magazine this year as worth a staggering RM8.77 billion, controls Tanjung Plc, Maxis Communications Bhd and Measat Broadcast Network Systems Sdn Bhd which operates the popular Astro satellite network, all via his private investment vehicle, Usaha Tegas Sdn Bhd. He collaborated with American geologist Tom Cantwell to purchase the rights to drill in Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Egypt, the North Sea and the US. They are said to have had more than 2.5 million hectares (1996 figures) under lease. One of his well remembered business successes was when he secured a RM2.8 billion loan in Sept 20, 2001 for Maxis, the largest corporate loan since the 1997/98 financial crisis, from Japan, the Netherlands and Canada. Ananda Krishnan, or AK, as he is also known, is a man of humble The son of a senior clerk in the civil service, this determined character achieved world renowned success which began with education at the Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur. He then pursued his studies at Melbourne University in Australia, where he was introduced to horses by his college mates, as all his friends' fathers bred horses. It was said that his first business venture while still a student at
the He took part in plays, one of them the Merchant of Venice, and a biweekly discussion programme over radio. After gaining his Bachelor of Arts (Honours), he moved on to Harvard University for a Masters in Business Administration in 1964. Although he has been hugely successful in business, he has remembered others of lesser means. More recently in June, companies under him pledged RM160 million to various education funds in the country. Even though there are many words to describe Ananda Krishnan, at the top of it all is Malaysian. |
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