Publicity-shy tycoon with friends in high places

LIKE MANY OF the world's well-heeled super-rich, Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary likes art, horses and has a healthy interest in philanthropy. Unlike many of them, however, he goes to considerable lengths to shun the limelight.

Although one of Malaysia's most influential tycoons - perhaps the most influential these days - Mr Syed Mokhtar largely avoids the media, declines interviews and conducts his business dealings through a confusing and opaque web of front companies and nominees.

But such is the regularity of his forays that barely a week goes by without some mention of this fast-rising commercial maestro in the pages of the regional press. This mixture of loving the deal but hating the plaudits makes him part Li Ka-shing, part Scarlet Pimpernel.

Mr Syed Mokhtar was at it again this week, swooping into Singapore on Monday to buy a chain of bookstores from locally-listed publisher MPH Limited for S$27 million (about HK$118 million). The cash transaction netted him 25 shops in his native Malaysia, a three-storey retail outlet in Kuala Lumpur, six branches in the Lion City and one in Indonesia.

The move was regarded as sufficiently important by The Business Times, Singapore's daily business newspaper, for it to lead the following day's edition. By contrast, Japan's cabinet reshuffle and the fate of Asia's largest economy - the main event of the day - received a slot downpage.

By Mr Syed Mokhtar's own standards the MPH transaction was small beer. His personal fortune is estimated to run into several billion ringgit and his business empire spans power generation, roads, ports, petrochemicals and many other sectors besides.