About 1,100 Maika Holdings' shareholders today came to the company's annual general meeting hoping to hear some good news about their investments.

Instead the meeting ended with more questions and uncertainties over the future of the MIC's troubled investment arm.

The main agenda for the meeting today was to obtain the shareholders' approval for the sale of the company's golden goose, insurance company Oriental Capital Assurance Bhd, for RM129.8 million.

The Maika board of directors got it approved through a quick balloting process, which many shareholders had not even bothered to vote.

Their lack of interest was largely due to their frustration in not getting any satisfactory answer from Maika chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Manaf, or the manner in which he conducted the meeting.

The meeting started promptly at 10am at the Sime Darby Convention Centre in Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur. Just minutes into the meeting, the sign of things to come was evident.

First came the issue of who should chair the meeting. One shareholder said that since Vell Paari - son of MIC president S Samy Vellu - was the chief executive officer of Maika, he should the conduct the meeting.

This was opposed by others, who said that Abdul Rashid was the right person to chair the meeting.

While this matter was being hotly debated, up cropped a second issue, on the matter of which language to be used to conduct the meeting.

Some shareholders opposed the use of English, some wanted only Tamil while the rest said let's do it in both.

Abdul Rashid, who by virtue of his post has been the chair of past Maika AGMs, said he neither speaks nor understands Tamil.

Shouting match

By now, just entering the third minute into the meeting, a shouting match started where almost everyone had something to say. One even questioned if Abdul Rashid should remain Maika chairperson if he could not communicate in the language of the shareholders.

In the midst of this, one shareholder claimed that there were many non-members in the hall and demanded Abdul Rashid, who chaired the meeting in English, to remove them. According to the shareholder, these non-members and security personnel were intimidating the shareholders.

Others defended the security personnel and claimed that everyone in the hall was a member.

It was strange indeed that there were many 'young and stern looking' shareholders in the crowd. Their job, on most occasions, was to silence shareholders asking questions on financial matters.

Up to this stage, the chairperson had not said a word and was instead watching the ensuing commotion like an observer.

By the first half hour, Abdul Rashid totally lost control of the floor. Just about everyone in the floor had something to say - and no real attempt was made to discuss the items in the agenda.

It was at this stage that former MIC deputy president S Subramaniam walked up to the microphone to say something. While he was about to talk, someone drowned his words by speaking into another microphone.

Subramaniam's supporters got angry and started heckling the culprit. Similarly, the former deputy minister too was heckled by others.

Only the authoritative voice of Wilayah Persekutuan MIC leader M Saravanan helped to bring the chaotic situation under control and the meeting continued with the chairperson reading out Maika's financial report for last year.

The four groups

By now everyone in the hall were well aware that there were four groups of shareholders at the meeting.

The first group was fiercely loyal to MIC president and Maika founder Samy Vellu. Naturally, this loyalty extended to his son, Vell Paari, the company's CEO. These shareholders would willingly rubber stamp whatever the board wanted.

The second comprised of Subramaniam's supporters, who have lost all confidence in the leadership of Samy Vellu. For them, Subramaniam would make a better leader if he had been given the chance. For this group, Maika's mismanagement was yet another sign of Samy Vellu's inability to do anything good for the community.

And then there were the third group of shareholders who genuinely were interested in making Maika a successful company. They wanted to eradicate all problems of mismanagement and ensure that Maika did what it was originally set up to do - to enable Indian Malaysians to have a share in the country's economic growth.

The fourth group were the poor shareholders who were taken in by the sweet talks made by their MIC leaders in 1982, promising them a good return for their investment in Maika.

In all, 66,000 shareholders - majority of whom are from the fourth category - invested in Maika, generating a total of RM106 million.

These shareholders have only one thing in mind - the return of their hard-earned money.

One man said: "I have waited for 24 years. Nothing big has come out of my investment. Just return my initial investment."

Back to the meeting. After Abdul Rashid had finished reading his financial report, he opened the floor for questions.

Shareholders asked him on various issues - from the proposed sale of OCAB to the apparent financial irregularities in the annual report.

The melee

Once again, things became tense when Abdul Rashid said he would take all questions before answering them. Many shareholders objected to this. Abdul Rashid said that he was doing so to allow his team "behind me to provide you the answers".

And when he began to answer some of the questions, once again tempers flared with one side saying they were not happy with his answers while the other side said they were sufficient.

One particular question, raised by housing cooperative Koperasi Nesa's secretary R Rajanan, became a point of contention.

Rajanan wanted to know why the evaluation of the Bukit Tumbuk estate in Sepang dropped drastically from RM115 million to RM67.7 million.

The chairperson's answer and rebuttals that followed turned the meeting into another melee.

It was at this stage that Subramaniam rose to speak again, asking the chairperson for clarification when one shareholder attempted to throw a punch at Subramaniam, who incidently is also Koperasi Nesa president.

All hell broke loose at this stage. Subramaniam was roughed up and his supporters were heckled.

While the melee was going on in one part of the hall, Abdul Rashid proceeded with his meeting, running through the agenda on his list. He said that he was calling for the balloting on the proposed sale of the insurance company and asked the shareholders to vote.

Most had gotten so frustrated by this stage and had left the hall, including Subramaniam and his posse of supporters.

The question by Rajanan remained unanswered. So were a host of other questions by other shareholders.

Don't mention Vell Paari

Few other short interludes of violence also broke out during the four-hour meeting.

In one, shareholder and DAP national vice chairperson M Kula Segaran was roughed up for questioning what Samy Vellu had done for Maika that the directors had thanked him for his "tireless work and guidance" in the annual report.

"What guidance has he given you? What tireless work has he done in the past 24 years that has now put Maika on the brink of being bankrupt," he said, only to be met with shoving and pushing by some menacing looking men.

Another man, a 74-year-old shareholder, said the meeting was being conducted like a "toddy shop" and asked why Vell Paari was walking around the hall while the meeting was proceeding.

The mere mention of Vell Paari's name was enough for this man to be physically assaulted and bundled out of the meeting room.

But the man came prepared for these - he had chili powder with him which he threw on his 'attackers'.

At the end of the day, many shareholders had come to accept that the insurance company would be sold and this will eventually mark the end of Maika Holdings.

A Pachiammal, a 73-year-old grandmother from Tangkak, Johor, was arguably the oldest shareholder at the meeting.

She had a worried look in her face and said she regretted putting her hard-earned cash into Maika.

When asked if she was still hopeful of getting her money back, she appeared dumbfounded and declined to answer.

She need not to say anything. Her body language was enough to show her bitter disappointment in the men who managed Maika. And she was not alone.


Watch the one-minute clip here.