Tun Dr. Abdul Daim bin Zainuddin (Jawi: عبدالدائم بن زين الدين‎; born 29 April 1938 in Alor Setar, Kedah) is a Malaysian politician, businessman and former Finance Minister of Malaysia from 1984 to 1991. In May 2023, he was investigated for corruption of RM2.3 billion (approximately US$500 million) by the Malaysian authorities related to the expose from the Pandora Papers. which led to some bank accounts and assets controlled by him or his family to be seized or frozen.

Early life

Daim is the youngest of thirteen siblings. His father was a clerk in the Kedah State Service and his mother a homemaker Zainuddin Affan & Hasimah Hassan. Daim received his early education at the Malay Primary School in Alor Setar and then later to the Special Malay Class at the Sultan Abdul Hamid College, an English-medium school.

He was encouraged by his mother to further his studies and his father wanted him to become a lawyer. His mother sold land to raise money for him to study law in England. Daim studied for eighteen months at Lincoln's Inn, London and was called to the English Bar in 1959 when he was 21 years old.

Early career

When he returned to Malaysia after his studies, he joined Pillai & Co. and later, the chambers of Shearn Delamore which was then the largest law firm in Kuala Lumpur. In 1961, he decided to move and work in Kota Bharu, Kelantan under Wan Mustaffa who was a legal adviser to the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PMIP) which later became known as Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). After his stint in Kota Bharu, he joined the Malaysian Civil Service as a Magistrate, and became the President of the Sessions Court in Johor and subsequently became Deputy Public Prosecutor in Ipoh, Perak. He resigned from the service in 1965, returned to Kuala Lumpur and joined the law firm Allen & Gledhill for the next three years till his resignation in 1968 to start his own law practice of Daim & Gamany. In 1969, however, he decided to venture into business.

Business

His first business venture was in salt production, where he went to Thailand, Taiwan and Japan to study salt production, weather forecast and soil condition. During the start-up they proceeded to clear 600 acres (2.4 km²) of the coastal land of Kuala Selangor, but because the rain came unseasonably early just when the salt had begun to crystallise, they were almost bankrupted by it.

In 1971, he decided to venture into land and property development. Together with two other partners, he formed a company, Syarikat Maluri Sdn Bhd of which he held a 60% majority control. The company bought and developed Taman Bukit Maluri, Kepong and Daim became the first full-fledged Malay property developer in Kuala Lumpur. In 1971, Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak introduced the New Economic Policy that was an ambitious and controversial socio-economic restructuring affirmative action program. The NEP targeted a 30% share of the economy for Bumiputera. Hence, being only a handful of Bumiputeras involved in this sector, Daim naturally gained advantages from the government over his Chinese counterparts.

His next venture was in plastics production. After he obtained a license however, another two licenses were issued and this instigated early and keen competition to Daim's fledgling company. Furthermore, the workers were incited to strike and eventually the venture proved to be another bankrupting business. Fortunately, his other downstream ventures which included the plastic packaging company, Daibochi and the snack food factory, Sedap Food flourished and were later listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE). He also invested in the Ports' downstream business with stevedoring, forwarding and low-loader licenses and had set up a manufacturing plant making steel and iron products such as manhole covers and telephone posts. The success of these ventures helped towards offsetting loans and borrowings of the failed venture. Daim bought a 30% equity interest in United Estates Projects (UEP) now known as Sime Darby–UEP (developer of Subang Jaya township) and went on picking up stakes in the share market, mostly strategic rather than controlling stakes.

Daim was willing to take risks and opportunities. When President François Mitterrand of France came into power and nationalised French banks, Daim knew that Malaysian banking regulations did not allow for government-owned banks to operate in Malaysia and therefore knew that Bank Indo-Suez will either have to close its operations in Malaysia or were to be sold-off. He wrote a letter to the head of the bank registering his interest in the event that they would want to sell. The bank decided to sell to Daim and in 1981 he became the owner of Indo-Suez (later renamed as the Malaysian-French Bank). When the United Malayan Banking Corporation (then the 2nd largest bank in Malaysia) became available, he exchanged his majority stake in the Malaysian-French Bank for a smaller stake in this larger bank.

Political career

Apart from business, politics have always interested Daim. His earliest exposure was as a student in London whereby though not actively involved in politics, he shared his fellow students interests in the political issues of the day particularly independence and post-independence implications on the socio–economic and religious mosaic of pluralistic Malaysia.

His first encounter with real politics albeit covertly was when in 1966, as a lawyer with Allen & Gledhill, the firm was appointed by the Federal Government of Malaysia to act for the governor of Sarawak in a case against the chief minister of that state. Back in Kuala Lumpur, Daim was asked to attend a cabinet meeting where he briefed the cabinet members of the political situation in Sarawak and pressed upon the cabinet the need for emergency to be declared to avert a worsening of the situation caused by the demonstrations against the chief minister's minority government. Emergency was declared. However, the security risk persisted and the governor as advised by the central government suspended the Standing Orders of the House and called for a meeting of the Assembly using emergency powers. Daim assisted in drafting the statement of the governor that the assembly was to debate; the assembly met, the chief minister's government was voted out of office. Impressed by his legal skills and political knowledge, the prime minister offered Daim a seat in Sungai Petani in the 1974 general elections but Daim declined, choosing instead to establish his credentials in business.

Daim decided that he was financially comfortable enough to retire in 1977. His retirement plan then was to go back to school and so he enrolled at University of California Berkeley to pursue a course in urban planning. At around the same time, he enjoyed a close rapport with the then Deputy Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

In 1978, Daim met Mahathir in Los Angeles and San Francisco, when Mahathir urged Daim to return to Malaysia and contest in the general election that year. At the same time, Daim was also offered the chairmanship of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) by the Public Enterprises Minister. However, he was not interested as he deemed it too big and widespread bureaucratic. Instead he suggested that the UDA should form a holding company and transfer all of its commercial property and commercial assets to it; only then would he agree to manage it. Hence, Peremba was established and Daim became its non-executive chairman with a team of young and bright hand-picked officers assisting him. In 1980, Daim was informed that the Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn had appointed him as senator in the upper house of parliament.

Election results

Corruption Investigation and Asset Seizure

A 60-storey building in downtown Kuala Lumpur controlled by his family, the Ilham Tower, located near the Petronas Twin Towers, was seized by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on December 21, 2023 as part of an criminal investigation against Daim Zainuddin and his family.^[11][12]

Honours

See also

• Kuala Kedah (federal constituency)
• Merbok (federal constituency)

References

External links

• Official website
• Malaysia.net