KUALA LUMPUR: A five-part feature in the New York Times (NYT) on how the influx of global money, some of it dodgy, has fuelled the city’s high-end real estate boom will include one article on Jho Low (Low Taek Jho).
According to the NYT’s Feb 7 edition, investigations done over a year by its reporters have “pierced the secrecy of more than 200 shell companies that have owned condominiums at one complex, the Time Warner Centre”.
The NYT said it found:
- Nearly half of the most expensive residential properties in the United States are now purchased anonymously through shell companies.
- The real estate industry does little examination of buyers’ identities or backgrounds, and there is no legal requirement for it to do so.
- At the Time Warner Centre, 37% of the condominiums are owned by foreigners. At least 16 foreigners who have owned condos in the building have been the subject of government inquiries, either personally or as heads of companies.
The first part of the series entitled Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Estate was published yesterday and can be read at www.nytimes.com.
The NYT said four more stories will be published this week and the one on Jho Low, who is described as the “Mysterious Malaysian Financier”, will appear in today’s edition.
It said Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, had spent more than US$140 million (RM490 million) on residences in New York and Los Angeles and later sold two of those properties to a member of a Malaysian political family.
The Penang-born 30-something Low has been the subject of much speculation about where his money came from. He told the Wall Street Journal last year that his family was worth US$1.65 billion (RM5.8 billion) and that it was his grandfather Low Meng Tak who started the family business.
Low’s father is Tan Sri Larry Low Hock Peng who in the late 1990s was involved with MWE Holdings Bhd.
People who know the Low family say while they were well to do, it came as a shock that Jho Low claims they are now worth RM5.8 billion, raising questions about where their wealth came from.
Jho Low is closely linked to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and although he holds no position there, he is said to have influence over the debt-laden sovereign wealth fund owned by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
1MDB, which has accumulated borrowings and liabilities of around RM48 billion in five years, has come under intense scrutiny over how it had overpaid for many things, including fees of around US$675 million to Goldman Sachs to raise US$6.5 billion in three bond issues in 2012 and 2013. The fees included “commissions paid” according to the bond documents.
The owner of The Edge Media Group Datuk Tong Kooi Ong recently accused Low of being behind several blogs that have made vicious attacks on him and The Edge because of articles published about the dealings and problems at 1MDB.
Low is also accused of being behind other blogs that have attacked Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Nazir Razak also because of their criticism of 1MDB.
Low, who often hosts lavish parties for Hollywood celebrities like Paris Hilton and Leonardo Di Caprio, has denied that he was responsible for the blog attacks.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 9, 2015.