¹ ‘Requiem for a rubber planter’ in Economist, 280, 12 September 1981.

² The firm's chairman, Mark Gent, was staying in a Cambridge hotel when he heard the news of the takeover on the radio. Interview with Mark Gent, Sherborne, Dorset, UK, 19 April 2007.

³ ‘Requiem for a rubber planter’, p. 81; ‘Malaysia swoops for Guthrie’ in Far Eastern Economic Review (hereafter FEER), 13 September 1981 cited in van Helten, Jean-Jacques and Jones, Geoffrey, ‘British business in Malaysia and Singapore since the 1870s’ in Davenport-Hines, R.P.T. and Jones, Geoffrey (eds), British Business in Asia Since 1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 186Google Scholar; ‘It was a bargain for PNB, says Guthrie MD’ in New Straits Times, 9 September 1981; ‘The sun sets on Guthrie’ in Financial Times, 8 September 1981.

⁴ Burma awaits its historian of economic nationalism, but see White, Nicholas J., ‘The Diversification of Colonial Capitalism: British Agency Houses in Southeast Asia during the 1950s and 1960s’ in Cook, Ian G., Doel, Marcus A., Li, Rex Y. F. and Wang, Yongjiang (eds), Dynamic Asia: Business, Trade and Economic Development in Pacific Asia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 22–5Google Scholar. The latest study of Indonesia is Lindblad, J. Thomas, Bridges to New Business: The Economic Decolonization of Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Cited in White, Nicholas J., British Business in Post-colonial Malaysia: ‘Neo-colonialism’ or ‘Disengagement’? (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 58–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ See Stockwell, A. J., ‘Introduction’ in Stockwell, A. J. (ed.), Malaya, Part I: The Malayan Union Experiment, 1942–1948 (London: HMSO, 1995), pp. xxxi–lxxxivGoogle Scholar; idem., ‘Introduction’ in A. J. Stockwell (ed.), Malaysia (London: The Stationery Office, 2004), pp. xxxv–xcv.

⁷ White, Nicholas J., Business, Government, and the End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 279Google Scholar; idem., ‘The beginnings of crony capitalism: Business, politics and economic development in Malaysia, c. 1955–70’ in Modern Asian Studies, 38, 2 (June 2004), pp. 405–11; idem., ‘The survival, revival and decline of British economic influence in Malaysia, 1957–70’ in Twentieth Century British History, 14, 3 (2003), pp. 238–40; idem., Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 67–8, 214–7.

⁸ Kershaw, Roger, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations: Old roles versus new rules’ in International Affairs, 59, 4 (Autumn 1983), pp. 640–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hock, Chew Huat, ‘Changing directions in foreign policy trends: A comparative analysis of Malaysia's bilateral relations with Britain and Singapore in 1981’ in Contemporary Southeast Asia, 4, 3 (December 1982), pp. 351–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teik, Khoo Boo, Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 54–7Google Scholar.

⁹ Harper, T. N., The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ ‘Najib dead wrong on Guthrie's history’ in Malaysiakini, 25 April 2007; ‘Bukan Khalid Bawa Balik Guthrie’ (Khalid did not bring Guthrie back) and ‘Khalid Perlu Cakap Benar—TPM’ (Khalid Needs to Tell the Truth—DPM) in Utusan Malaysia, 22 and 23 April 2007; ‘Najib: Khalid wanted bigger stake in Guthrie’ in The Star, 27 April 2007; Interview with Tan Sri Desa Pachi, Kuala Lumpur, 12 September 2007; Desa Pachi to Shakila Yacob, 20 May 2008.

¹¹ White, Nicholas J., ‘AGENCY HOUSES, European’ in Gin, Ooi Keat (ed.), Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, From Angkor Wat to East Timor (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2004), Vol. 1, pp. 127–8Google Scholar.

¹² The standard text on the development of the Guthrie group is Cunnyngham-Brown, Sjovald, The Traders: A Story of Britain's South-East Asian Commercial Adventure (London: Newman Neame, 1971)Google Scholar. See also the relevant pages of Jones, Geoffrey, Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Tate, D. J. M., The RGA History of the Plantation Industry in the Malay Peninsula (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Allen, G. C. and Donnithorne, A. G., Western Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya: A Study in Economic Development (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957)Google Scholar; and, Drabble, J. H. and Drake, P. J., ‘The British Agency Houses in Malaysia: Survival in a Changing World’ in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 12 (1981), pp. 297–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On one of the group's key plantation companies, see Parkinson, C. N., The Guthrie Flagship: United Sua Betong (edited and abridged by Gullick, J. M.) (Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1996)Google Scholar.

¹³ White, Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 4–5.

¹⁴ The central argument as per ibid.

¹⁵ van Helten and Jones, ‘British business’, p. 184; Saham, Junid, British Industrial Investment in Malaysia, 1963–71 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 14 n. 23Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Funston, N. J., Malay Politics in Malaysia: A Study of the United Malays National Organisation and Party Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1980), p. 8Google Scholar; ‘Out of the doldrums’ in FEER, 26 June 1981.

¹⁷ White, Nicholas J., ‘British business groups and the early years of Malayan/Malaysian independence’ in Asia Pacific Business Review, 7, 2 (Winter 2000), p. 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., ‘Diversification of Colonial Capitalism’, p. 21; Bank of England Archive, Threadneedle Street, London (hereafter BoE), G1/183, Governor's Note of Conversation with Mr. G. L. C. Touche (Chairman of the Association of Investment Trusts); note by L. P. Thompson-McCausland for Mr. O’ Brien and the Governor, 14 October 1963; Sir Eric Griffith-Jones to Lord Cromer, 30 July 1964.

¹⁸ White, Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 45, 129, 170; Cunnyngham-Brown, Traders, pp. 308, 313–4; Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, p. 318.

¹⁹ Note by J. M. Gullick enclosed in J. M. Gullick to Shakila Yacob, 26 April 2007. The former colonial civil servant, John Gullick, was company secretary at Guthrie's London Office between 1959 and 1962, London solicitor to GCL between 1966 and 1973 and subsequently a non-executive director of GCL between 1973 and 1982.

²⁰ The National Archives, Kew, London (hereafter TNA), OD 39/136, note of meeting at the Ministry of Overseas Development, 15 August 1968.

²¹ White, End of Empire, pp. 208–9; idem., ‘The limits of late-colonial intervention: Labour policy and the development of trade unions in 1950s Malaya’, in Indonesia and the Malay World, 36, 106 (November 2008), p. 433.

²² Gullick note, 26 April 2007; Tate, RGA, p. 597, n. 37; Arkib Negara Malaysia (hereafter ANM), H. F. O’ Brien Traill papers, SP 95/B/12, note on training schemes etc., 14 June 1966, enclosed in ‘Note of a Discussion on Malayanisation, United Planting Association of Malaysia Proprietors’ Section Meeting, 15 July 1966’; White, Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 74–7; Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, pp. 321–2.

²³ White, Post-colonial Malaysia, p. 87.

²⁴ Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, pp. 314, 316–7; Gullick note, 26 April 2007.

²⁵ Gomez, Edmund Terence, Chinese Business in Malaysia: Accumulation, Accommodation and Ascendance (London: Curzon, 1999), pp. 157–8Google Scholar.

²⁶ BoE, ADM 14/82, note for the Governor and the Deputy Governor by L. P. Thompson-McCausland, 10 March 1965.

²⁷ Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’; Ooi Kee Beng, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Times (Singapore: ISEAS, 2006), pp. 171, 181; Rahman, Tunku Abdul, Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories (Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka Antara, 1977), p. 171Google Scholar. Race riots broke out on 13 May 1969 in Kuala Lumpur after ‘victory’ processions and counter-processions in the immediate aftermath of the gains made by opposition parties in the general election.

²⁸ Mark Gent to Nicholas J. White, 21 April 2003.

²⁹ Gent interview, 19 April 2007; Gullick note, 26 April 2007; Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, pp. 318, 323.

³⁰ Interview with Henry Barlow, Kuala Lumpur, 17 November 2007.

³¹ Letter from Gent to Shakila Yacob, 21 April 2007.

³² Controlled by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, the Malaysian Treasury's holding company, PERNAS, was under the presidency of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who was Minister of Finance at the time of the Dawn Raid.

³³ ‘Requiem for a rubber planter’, 12 September 1981.

³⁴ Gullick note, 26 April 2007; Gent interview, 19 April 2007; ‘A respite, not a reprieve’ and Hugh Peyman, ‘Plantation giants eye new conquests’ in FEER, 19 and 26 December 1980; Barlow interview, 17 November 2007; Ibrahim, Abdul Khalid, ‘Business investments and growth’ in Malaysian Management Review, 20, 2 (August 1985), pp. 11–18Google Scholar; Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 352; Interview with Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 2 November 2007.

³⁵ ‘PNB launches 901p a share bid for Guthrie’ in Business Times, 8 September 1981.

³⁶ Letter to White, 21 April 2003.

³⁷ ‘A respite, not a reprieve: Sime Darby gives up its chase of Guthrie Corporation and pockets a healthy profit in the process’ and ‘Out of the doldrums’ in FEER, 19 December 1980 and 26 June 1981.

³⁸ Interview with Khalid Ibrahim, 2 November 2007; Leela Barrock, ‘When the big boys came home’, Merdeka Special in The Edge, 3 September 2007, pp. 30–31.

³⁹ ‘Genting group: Farewell to our founder: Tan Sri Dato Seri (Dr.) Lim Goh Tong’ in New Straits Times, 26 October 2007; ‘Out of the doldrums’, 26 June 1981; Gomez, Chinese Business, pp. 49–58.

⁴⁰ Keith Anderson, a former chairman of Guthrie & Company, was the third son of Sir John Anderson, who had become a partner in the Singapore agency house in 1876 and its senior partner and majority owner after 1902. With the assistance of Sir John Hay in London, Sir John Anderson had been the dominant influence upon Guthrie's diversification into the promotion and management of rubber companies. Cunnyngham-Brown, The Traders; Orbell, John, ‘Anderson, Sir John (1852–1924)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2004[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/52622, accessed 8 April 2008]Google Scholar.

⁴¹ ‘Guthrie: What happens now?’ and ‘PNB launches 901p a share bid for Guthrie’ in Business Times, 17 December 1980 and 8 September 1981.

⁴² ‘A respite, not a reprieve’, 19 December 1980; Gent to White, 11 November 2007. Khalid had calculated that it was futile approaching Save & Prosper, the other UK investment trust holding substantial shares in GCL, because its directors were considered too ‘anglophile’. Barrock, ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007, pp. 30–31.

⁴³ ‘Requiem for a rubber planter’, 12 September 1981.

⁴⁴ Interview with Khalid Ibrahim, 2 November 2007.

⁴⁵ ‘A respite, not a reprieve’, 19 December 1980.

⁴⁶ Interview with Khalid Ibrahim, 2 November 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

⁴⁷ Gullick note, 26 April 2007.

⁴⁸ Gent interview, 19 April 2007.

⁴⁹ ‘Plantation giants eye new conquests’ and ‘The buyers are willing, the sellers are weak’ in FEER, 26 December 1980 and 2 October 1981.

⁵⁰ Letter to Nicholas J. White, 11 November 2007.

⁵¹ Gullick note, 26 April 2007. The position of large public companies such as GCL and H&C was quite different to the Danish United Plantations group, which was largely family-owned, was relatively small and geographically concentrated in Perak and was able to come to terms with a Malaysian controlling interest after 1982. See Martin, Susan, The UP Saga (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2003), pp. 116–7, 234–6, 255–8Google Scholar; idem., ‘European Plantation Firms and Malaysia's New Economic Policy since 1970’, paper presented at the International Economic History Congress, University of Helsinki, August 2006, Session 94: Foreign Companies and Economic Nationalism in the Developing World after World War Two.

⁵² Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 357.

⁵³ ‘A message from Mahathir’, FEER, 25 September 1981.

⁵⁴ Interview with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Kuala Lumpur, 17 July 2007.

⁵⁵ Gent to Shakila Yacob, 21 April 2007.

⁵⁶ Cited in Khoo, Paradoxes, p. 90, n. 15.

⁵⁷ Kershaw, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations’, p. 630; Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 358.

⁵⁸ Mohamad, Mahathir bin, The Malay Dilemma (Times Books International: Singapore, 1970), pp. 39, 52Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Mahathir interview, 17 July 2007.

⁶⁰ Cited in Kershaw, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations’, p. 640 and Chew, ‘Changing directions’, pp. 349–50.

⁶¹ Gent interview, 19 April 2007; Kershaw, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations’, p. 637, n. 16.

⁶² Mahathir interview, 17 July 2007.

⁶³ Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 353.

⁶⁴ ‘A tough guy takes over’ in FEER, 30 October 1981. Mahathir was still smarting in 1996 during an address at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge: ‘The British Government immediately stepped in, declaring that “dawn raids” were henceforth to be regarded as illegal. Since we did it before it was declared illegal, it should have been accepted in good spirit. However, Malaysia was accused of back door nationalisation’. ‘Market Economy and Moral and Cultural Values—A Malaysian Perspective’, 16 April 1996.

⁶⁵ ‘Message from Mahathir’, ‘Tough guy takes over’ and ‘Exit Dunlop, smiling’, in FEER, 25 September and 30 October 1981, and 23 July 1982; Kershaw, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations’, p. 637.

⁶⁶ Kershaw, ‘Anglo-Malaysian relations’, p. 642; Khoo, Paradoxes, pp. 65–74.

⁶⁷ ‘Studiously ignored’ in FEER, 18 December 1981, pp. 52–3; Chew, ‘Changing directions’, pp. 358, 359.

⁶⁸ Mahathir interview, 27 July 2007; Interview with Sir Donald Hawley, Salisbury, UK, 10 April 2007; ‘Malaysian students get more British aid’ in FEER, 24 February 1983.

⁶⁹ ‘The thaw continues’ in FEER, 4 August 1983.

⁷⁰ Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 357; Mahathir interview, 17 July 2007.

⁷¹ ‘Najib dead wrong’, 25 April 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007; Interview with Khalid Ibrahim, 2 November 2007.

⁷² Interview with Mahathir Mohamad, 27 July 2007.

⁷³ BoE, General File No. 161890, ‘CSI: Recent Developments in Market Purchases’, 12 October 1981, Appendix 2, ‘Extract from the Council's Annual Report for the year to 31 March 1981’.

⁷⁴ Ibid., ‘CSI: Recent Developments in Market Purchases’, 12 October 1981.

⁷⁵ Ibid.

⁷⁶ On 15 July 1981, bids were made by Churchbury Estates for Law Land and by Northern Engineering Industries for Amalgamated Power Engineering. Ibid., Appendix 3, ‘Details of recent rapid acquisitions’.

⁷⁷ Ibid., ‘Dawn Raids and Malaysia’, Note for Dawkins by Fuggle, Financial Supervision—General Division, 8 December 1981.

⁷⁸ Ibid., ‘CSI: Recent Developments in Market Purchases’, 12 October 1981.

⁷⁹ Ibid.

⁸⁰ Ibid., copy of note by G. H. Campbell and S. E. Taylor, Far East and South-East Asia Department, Confederation of British Industry of a meeting with John Hignett, director general of the panel on takeovers and mergers, LSE, 16 October 1981. Under LSE rules, PNB subsequently offered to purchase the ordinary and preference shares of the remaining shareholders at the same price (£9.01) per share as it had paid in the raid. As the GCL board privately valued the shares at about £7, and doubted the ability of minority shareholders to exercise control in the future, the directorate recommended to all its shareholders that they should accept this advantageous offer. Thus PNB came to own 100% of the share capital by the end of 1981. Gullick note, 26 April 2007; Gent to White, 11 November 2007. Ismail Ali replaced Gent as chairman and PNB nominees also took the place of the British managing and finance directors. Gent and Gullick were kept on as non-executive directors until 1983 as a ‘face saver . . . for the nervous expatriate staff’ (Gent to White, 11 November 2007), especially those in the non-Malaysian enterprises which PNB had little knowledge of. Neither, however, had any part in the management of GCL after the raid since the London office was closed and de facto headquarters moved to Kuala Lumpur. At the intermittent board meetings held in London ‘a few very general financial statements were tabled but hardly discussed’ (Gullick note, 26 April 2007). In 1988, the non-Malaysian interests were sold back to British investors, and in 1989 the new Guthrie Berhad was listed on the KLSE.

⁸¹ Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 353.

⁸² ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

⁸³ Ivan Fallon, ‘British firms under pressure to toe the line’ in New Straits Times, 5 November 1974.

⁸⁴ Khadijah Khalid, ‘Malaysia-Japan Relations: Explaining the Root Causes of the Pro-Japan Orientation of Malaysia in the post-1981 Period’, PhD Thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1999, chapter 2.

⁸⁵ ‘A dividend for the people’ in FEER, 23 January 1981; interview with Khalid Ibrahim, 2 November 2007; Keiko Saruwatari, ‘Malaysia's localisation policy and its impact on British-owned enterprises’ in The Developing Economies, XXIX, 4 (December 1981), pp. 373–4.

⁸⁶ Rasiah, Rajah and Shari, Ishak, ‘Market, government and Malaysia's new economic policy’ in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 25, 1 (2001), p. 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, p. 374; ‘A dividend for the people’, 23 January 1981.

⁸⁸ Khalid interview, 2 November 2007. Under so-called ‘Ali Baba’ arrangements, a Malay (‘Ali’) could obtain a business licence on behalf of a Chinese entrepreneur (‘Baba’). The business was covertly run by Baba with Ali remaining a sleeping partner. The British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur found the practice widespread by the late 1960s. TNA, FCO 24/250, enclosure by Guy Duncan in High Commissioner to Commonwealth Secretary, 2 April 1968.

⁸⁹ ‘A dividend for the people’, 23 January 1981; Khalid interview, 2 November 2007; Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, p. 375.

⁹⁰ ‘Permodalan's surge’ in FEER, 7 May 1982; Rajah Rasiah and Ishak Shari, ‘Market’, p. 73.

⁹¹ Khalid interview, 2 November 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

⁹² Desa Pachi interview, 12 September 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

⁹³ ‘Localisation without fuss’ in FEER, 3 October 1980.

⁹⁴ Gullick note, 26 April 2007.

⁹⁵ TNA, DO 35/9863, Minute by Humphrey for Smith, 25 April 1960; on Spencer see note by J. M. Gullick in Gullick to White, 21 January 2008; Gullick, John, ‘Prelude to Merdeka: Public administration in Malaya, 1945–57’ in South East Asia Research, 5, 2 (1997), p. 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar and White, Nicholas J., ‘Spencer, Oscar (1913–1993)’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, May 2009)Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ ISEAS Library, Singapore, Tan Cheng Lock papers, TCL XIV/98a, UMNO/MCA Alliance Headquarters, 1 March 1955, copy of letter to the Tunku from Ismail Mohamed Ali, 5 February 1955; TCL XIV/98b, ‘Comments by Ismail Mohamed Ali on the Memorandum on Finance and Economic Policies’, 4 April 1955.

⁹⁷ Collin Abraham (former Associate Professor of Sociology, Universiti Sains Malaysia and author of various books on Malaysian history and politics) thus joined in the Ijok debate by claiming that it was the former left-wing Singapore activist, Puthucheary, who in exile in Malaysia had convinced UMNO leaders that the takeover of the British agency houses was possible and would ensure a fair and equitable distribution of these assets. Where the government deviated from Puthucheary's advice, however, was that the Malaysian Indian rubber tappers did not receive compensation for their ‘near slavery’ and denial of a ‘monthly living wage’ during the initial take-off of the rubber industry in the early twentieth century. ‘“Dawn Raid”: Who were the beneficiaries’ in Malaysiakini, 27 April 2007. A discussion of Puthucheary's influence on the NEP can also be found in K. S. Jomo, ‘Afterword’ in Puthucheary, J. J., Ownership and Control in the Malayan Economy, 2nd reprint (Kuala Lumpur: INSAN, 2004), pp. 196–8Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, p. 372.

⁹⁹ White, Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 70–1, 82–3. For more on Ismail Ali's role at Bank Negara during the 1960s and 1970s, see Catherine R. Schenk, ‘Malaysia and the end of the Bretton Woods system, 1965–72: Disentangling from sterling’ in Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 36, 2 (2008), pp. 197–220.

¹⁰⁰ Enclosure in TNA, FCO 15/2075.

¹⁰¹ TNA, FCO 15/2075, notes prepared by Mr. Henry Barlow and given to Mr. Squire at a meeting on 2 June 1975.

¹⁰² ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007; Khalid interview, 2 November 2007.

¹⁰³ TNA, FCO 15/2075, Sir Eric Norris to Wilford, FCO, 4 March 1975.

¹⁰⁴ ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007; Khalid interview, 2 November 2007.

¹⁰⁵ ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

¹⁰⁶ See, for example, ‘A new chapter for Sime’ in FEER, 19 December 1980. Bank Negara had representation on the Sime Darby board from 1974. Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, p. 324.

¹⁰⁷ Gent described the failed takeover of Guthrie by Sime Darby as ‘no less a nationalistic coup’ than the successful swoop of September 1981. Gent to Shakila Yacob, 13 April 2007; Gent to White, 11 November 2007; Gullick note, 26 April 2007.

¹⁰⁸ Desa Pachi interview, 12 September 2007.

¹⁰⁹ van Helten and Jones, ‘British business’, pp. 185–6; Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, pp. 378, 381; Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, pp. 324–5; Loh, Grace, Boon, Goh Chor and Lang, Tan Teng, Building Bridges, Carving Niches: An Enduring Legacy (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 142–4Google Scholar.

¹¹⁰ ‘Localisation without fuss’ and ‘A respite, note a reprieve’ in FEER, 3 October and 19 December 1980.

¹¹¹ Khalid, ‘Investments and growth’.

¹¹² Khalid interview, 2 November 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

¹¹³ ‘New chapter for Sime’, 19 December 1980; see also ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

¹¹⁴ Interview with Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Chelsea, London, 29 November 2007.

¹¹⁵ Gent to White, 11 November 2007; Barlow interview, 17 November 2007.

¹¹⁶ Gill, Ranjit, Razaleigh: An Unending Quest (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1986), pp. 58–9Google Scholar.

¹¹⁷ P. Gunasegaran, ‘Bid that was a well-kept secret’ in National Echo, 9 September 1981. It was Rothpura Nominees, a subsidiary of Bumiputera Merchant Bankers, which proposed the Asian directors to replace the British executives on the Sime Darby board in 1976. Drabble and Drake, ‘Agency Houses’, p. 324, n. 87.

¹¹⁸ TNA, FCO 15/2075, Barlow notes, 2 June 1975.

¹¹⁹ Ibid; see also Gullick note, 26 April 2007. In 1975, Pernas had attempted to take control of LTC after purchasing the majority stake held by Haw Paw, a Singapore firm owned by the British financier Jim Slater. However, a financial scandal concerning Slater and Haw Paw foiled this. Instead, a more orthodox takeover tactic was employed in 1976 whereby PERNAS combined with Chartered Consolidated, the UK subsidiary of the South African Anglo-American Corporation (which had acquired a major interest in the Malaysian tin-mining industry in 1965), to launch a successful bid for LTC's shares on the LSE. Subsequently, Chartered's and LTC's interests were merged to form the Malaysia Mining Corporation, over 70% of which was owned by PERNAS. van Helten and Jones, ‘British business’, pp. 184–5; Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, pp. 378–9.

¹²⁰ Khalid interview, 2 November 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

¹²¹ ‘Requiem for a rubber planter’, 12 September 1981; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007. According to Bank of England officials, the dawn raid technique had largely been developed by Rowe & Pitman during the summer of 1980. BoE, General File No. 161890, Note by Fuggle for Dawkins, 8 December 1981.

¹²² ‘The buyers are willing, the sellers weak’ and ‘Permodalan cheif heads MMC’ in FEER, 2 October and 4 December 1981; Khalid, ‘Investments and growth’; Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, p. 380.

¹²³ ‘Buyers willing, sellers weak’, 2 October 1981.

¹²⁴ ‘Sunset on British estates’ in FEER, 11 June 1982; Pugh, Peter et al. , Great Enterprise: A History of Harrisons & Crosfield (London: the firm, 1990), pp. 249–53Google Scholar. This course of events was far from disastrous for H&C because through money earned from the sale of shares to PNB, the investment group was able to pay back £85 million borrowed to finance diversification into North American and Australian chemicals. H&C, renamed Elementis in 1997, was thus able to ‘re-invent’ itself as a speciality chemicals group. Geoffrey Jones and Judith Wale, ‘Diversification strategies of British trading companies: Harrisons & Crosfield, c. 1900–c. 1980’ in Business History, 14, 2 (April 1999), pp. 79–80; Jones, Merchants to Multinationals, pp. 321–2, 325, 335. In contrast, GCL's non-Malaysian business was sold off in one block, and the group's British identity swiftly ended. The £282 million paid for GCL was more than recouped by the sale of the non-Malaysian interests. As Khalid commented, ‘we literally got Guthrie for free’. Khalid interview, 2 November 2007; ‘When the big boys came home’, 3 September 2007.

¹²⁵ Mahathir had also been angry at the actions of Dunlop Holdings, which was negotiating with PNB for the localisation of its plantation subsidiary, but eventually sold the majority of its shares to the highest bidder. This proved to be a non-Malay enterprise in the guise of MPH. ‘Tough guy takes over’, 30 October 1981; see also Saruwatari, ‘Localisation’, pp. 376–83.

¹²⁶ TNA, FCO 24/249, Guy Duncan to Trevor Mound, 18 January 1968; Gomez, Chinese Business, pp. 83–6.

¹²⁷ ‘Out of the doldrums’ and ‘The doctor's dilemma’ in FEER, 26 June and 17 July 1981; Gomez, Chinese Business, p. 87. UMNO Youth had also been incensed by the Dunlop sale to MPH before the Dawn Raid. Chew, ‘Changing directions’, p. 355.

¹²⁸ ‘Out of the doldrums’, 26 June 1981; Gomez, Chinese Business, pp. 158–9.

¹²⁹ ‘Dividend for the people’, 23 January 1981; Chew, ‘Changing directions’, pp. 347–8.

¹³⁰ A classic example here is the process of Britain's retreat from empire generally. See Darwin, John, The End of the British Empire: The Historical Debate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991)Google Scholar; White, Nicholas J., Decolonisation: The British Experience Since 1945 (Harlow: Longman, 1999)Google Scholar.

¹³¹ Mahathir interview, 17 July 2007.

¹³² During 1946, for example, there was much concern among UMNO members that a proposed transfer of US$50 million from Nationalist China to rehabilitate Malayan Chinese industries following the Japanese occupation would further boost the Chinese business grip at the expense of Malays who lacked similar funding opportunities. ANM, UMNO papers, UMNO/SG, 82/1946, enclosure by Abdul Majid Haji Mohamed in O/C Department of Economics UMNO, Penang to Tuan Haji Adbul Wahab, Dato Panglima Bukit Gantang, Ipoh, 19 September 1946. Similarly, foreign multinationals tended to be favoured by the UMNO-dominated government after 1957 in the development of import substitution industrialisation for fear of Chinese business preponderance, and a proposed wholesale buyout of British plantations in the later 1960s was shelved on similar grounds. See White, Post-colonial Malaysia, pp. 167, 215–6.