Teh Hong Piow and 1966-Part 2

On October 28, 1966, about a month and a half after Teh Hong Piow and other former senior executives of Malayan Banking Bhd opened Public Bank Bhd for business, there was a run on Malayan Banking.
The matter was so serious that police had to be called in to control crowds at some branches, and Bank Negara and its then Governor Ismail Ali had to issue a statement expressing Government support for Malayan(Straits Times, Saturday ,29 October 1966,page 1).

According to a market commentary in the Straits Times, Monday 31 October 1966:

The (Bank Negara) statement on Malayan Banking was more than timely in view of the rumours that have been sweeping through the market over the past month or so.
The market has to a large extent been holding back because of concern about the affairs of this huge bank chain, with all its ramifications and which in the past few years has expanded so rapidly.
The report and accounts for the year ended June 30 are well overdue.The annual meeting is some six weeks late .....the market view is that the affairs of the bank
should be the subject of an investigation to clear the air completely.


According to the Bank Negara Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 1966:
Rumours arose from the differences of opinion among some members of the board of directors of the bank regarding certain material advances to customers of the bank.These advances were found to be inadequately secured, particularly as a result of depressed prices of property shares which formed the main security of the advances.Subsequently additional securities were lodged with the bank in respect of these advances.
(Note: The Bank Negara report is careful to not name Malayan Banking -it simply refers to a commercial bank which experienced abnormal withdrawals at the end of October 1966 which required the Central Bank to issue a public statement to assure the bank's depositors of the safety of their funds)

And to take readers back to Part 1 of the Teh Hong Piow story:

He rose swiftly through the ranks and became general manager (in 1964).

In 1966 came the decision to strike out on his own.

One of his earliest breakthroughs – a foray into housing development – generated some RM10mil, which was used as seed money to set up the bank.

(http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/10/18/business/19198449&sec=business )

So -Teh left Maybank in 1966-got into property development , made RM 10 million-and started his own bank in August that year.How brilliant, how skillful......(readers can add other adjectives)

(see full story at http://sahathevan.blogspot.com/2007/10/public-banks-teh-hong-piowwhat-exaclty.html)

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