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Tan Sri Loy, not in Paris, confirms he is alive and "reassures" depositors,.

The MBf Group Chief Executive Officer and President, Tan Sri Dato Dr Loy Hean Hong, like Mark Twain, has assured the world that rumours of his death are exaggerated. A day after he issued a statement about the financial health of his companies, allegedly after meeting his board of directors and senior executives, he emerged from his hospital bed where he is being treated for colon cancer, he told Malaysian investors in his finance company not to listen to rumours. Had no one told him that if the rumours were not spelt out, that would occasion further uncertainties since people hear different rumours. And since the Bolehland oracle has spoken, it now "ascertainted" that the run on the two days did not occasion significant withdrawals. If they were insigificant, why the panic in the boardroom? Why this subterfuge of showing the world that he was in Kuala Lumpur when he was not?

How did the rumours start? People saw Tan Sri Loy in a wheelchair, and that with his known history of cancer, was one source of the rumours. Calls to MBf for confirmation when the run spread was met with Bolehland garrulity: "I am afraid I cannot tell you anything. Only my boss can. And he is at a meeting." Then the phone shuts up. To most people nervous of the stock market, that is sufficient reason to imagine the worst. Bolehland institutions believe that a bunkered silence would ward off rumours. Other successful companies not linked to Bolehland practice would often have a more credible story by experienced people to ward off a panic. In Bolehland, the public relations department is a nice place to put inexperienced or unwanted or irrelevant officials to keep them out of the way. Or a quiet cozy corner to install your mistress. So, when things go wrong, every thing goes awry. I am not saying that this problem exists in MBf, but the manner of the response does indicate that, like the government on the haze, this was never written into the script.

If I were advising them on public relations, I would have told them to come clean with a detailed statement, state the rumours and dismiss or confirm them as if those reading them are valued people whose concern deserves the most complete answer that can be given. Corporate public relations, on the other hand, regard them as insufferable nimcompoops, and more often than not, in such cases, mislead. That is what happened in the BMf affair. But truth, even if unpalatable, is more believable than corporate flights of fancy any day.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my