Farewell note to employees: Khazanah's Indian knickers now out in the open

NOW that the dust has settled and Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar has had a little under 48 hours of life as a retiree, it is time to pull out the drawers and reveal the purportedly parlous state of Khazanah’s knickers.

More appropriately, Khazanah investment totalling RM80 million pumped for a 22 per cent stake in Zivame, the online purveyor of knickers for chaste Indian women is not necessarily money down the chute and as dire as claimed by its detractors.

In fact, Khazanah remains on track to, over the medium term; recover all or almost all of the sum PROVIDED for to cover this investment.

To the uninitiated – provision, refers to a prudent accounting procedure of setting aside a sum of money for what is expected to be a liability; hence the word PROVIDE/D.

This explanation was given in a farewell letter sent out to Khazanah staff, just a little over 36 hours after Azman vacated his office and left the building.

In the note, Azman said Zivame remains a going concern, “… having had its bester ever quarter.”

He added the investment made sense considering India was a market of more than one billion consumers, half of them women.

Women looking to buy undergarments online was therefore an untapped market, driven by rising incomes and even faster rising internet and mobile penetration in an otherwise male dominated physical retail sector.

For purposes of clarity and accuracy, we publish in full, Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar’s farewell letter below.