The 2024 Investor Day of icapital.biz Bhd (ICAP, 5108), with its theme of “How a ‘Romantic’ Entrepreneur Found Success by Dreaming Beyond Money,” was a record success over the two days it was held. It attracted over two thousand participants and brought together industry experts, international corporate leaders and students to delve into what is in store for Malaysia, the business sectors that will thrive, and even questioning the purpose of life.

In his keynote speech, Capital Dynamics CEO and icapital.biz Bhd’s designated person, Tan Teng Boo, is of the opinion that Malaysia should abandon the multi-billion Kuala Lumpur - Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project and instead focus on domestic connectivity.

“If the HSR were implemented, people would stay in Kuala Lumpur but work in Singapore. Malaysia will experience even more brain drain as people would choose to work in high income Singapore. The net beneficiary will be Singapore, and not Malaysia,” said Tan.

The 350-kilometre rail line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore aims to reduce travel time between the two cities to 90 minutes from more than four hours by car. A decision on the status of this project will be announced by the government soon.

“Focus instead on connectivity between the Malaysian states, particularly the rural to the urban states. The country as a whole will benefit a lot more from this,” said Tan.

He added that the semiconductor sector remains the most important sector in Malaysia, as it employs some 10% of the total manufacturing employment in Malaysia.

With Malaysia contributing between 7% and 10% to the global chips output, he feels the Federal and state governments are doing something right by investing in integrated circuit (IC) chip design parks in Selangor and Penang.

This will ultimately benefit Malaysia over the long term as it is not capital, but knowledge-intensive.

Last year during the 2023 Investor Day, Tan turned positive on Malaysia for the first time in a decade because Malaysia’s fourth prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had started losing significant influence on Malaysian politics.

For this year, Tan remains positive on Malaysia for this reason, besides the positive social and economic reforms undertaken by the current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. 

He maintains his view that the FBM KLCI will hit 2,500 to 3,000 over the next three to five years.

Tan said that icapital.biz Bhd’s priority remains converting ordinary people to become better and more intelligent investors.

Intelligent investors lead to better capital markets. This will eventually be leading to Malaysia becoming a more resilient economy and a socially better place to live.

For Teng Boo, the purpose of life is to endlessly solve problems. Solving problems creates new problems.

Learning how to invest better

It wasn’t a day dedicated only to experienced investors. Novice and would-be investors left the event with improved financial literacy and savvier investing skills.

The 2024 Investor Day curated 17 exciting programs, which were held over 2 concurrent tracks of presentations, suitable for all types of investors that delivered essential insights and actionable opportunities across the investment world.

The first track of programmes was ‘For the Experienced Investors’ — where key management from public-listed companies, including Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd, Kelington Group Bhd, SAM Engineering Bhd, Capital A Bhd, Suria Capital Bhd, SenseTime Group Limited and APM Automotive Holdings Bhd, presented overviews of their companies and took questions from the floor.  The Fund Manager of icapital.biz Bhd also explained its unique dividend policy.

The second track of programmes, ‘For Novice Investors,’ featured a plethora of sessions, from more straightforward topics such as navigating investments using financial statements and what an investor should do with their Employees Provident Fund Account 3.

Other sessions included why one should own an electric vehicle, and what it’s like working alongside Tan Teng Boo.

#MalaysianBusiness #Finance #Investment #Economy #Infrastructure #Semiconductors #FBMKLCI #CapitalMarkets

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