Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by tat3179

[WTS] Seinheisser HD650 + 4pin ZY cable

tat3179 — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 09:33:12 +0800

Item(s): HD650 + 4pin ZY cable

Package includes: HD650 + 4pin ZY cable, original 1/4 cable, box and packaging

Price: RM1000 for both

Warranty:None. Expired long ago

Dealing method: COD

Location: Subang Jaya

Contact method/details: PM me for phone and photos
---

Item(s) conditions: Good condition

Picture:Will be given upon request

Reason for sale:Upgraded already

[WTB] iFI DSD BLACK LABEL

tat3179 — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 16:32:01 +0800

I am interested in buying the iFI DSD Black label

Please give me your offer if you are willing to sell, thanks

[WTB] Audeze LCD 3 Fazor

tat3179 — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 16:56:47 +0800

I want to buy a 2nd hand Audeze LCD 3F.

Prefer complete package.

Please offer me your price via PM.

Thanks

SOLD

tat3179 — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 09:52:31 +0800

Item(s):Aune T1 MK 2 Tube DAC/AMP

Package includes:Box, Power Brick, Stock Tubes, Manual, USB Cable

Price: SOLD!

Warranty:None. 1 Month Personal Warranty

Dealing method:COD at Subang Jaya/KL

Location of seller:Subang Jaya/KL

Contact method/details:PM Me

Age of item:More than 1 year

---

Item(s) conditions:Good. Hardly used. Prefer Solid State DAC/AMP. A Bit Dusty

Picture:Will Whatsapp

Reason for sale:Clearing Audio Equipment

Aune T1 MK 2 Tube DAC/AMP with stock tube for sale.

Selling because not using and want to avoid things collecting dust and wasted. Rather sell at very attractive price in order for some one else to use it than it sit in my store room unused.

All in working order and fairly new looking.

[WTS] ATH AD900X (With Detachable Cable Mod)

tat3179 — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 20:49:00 +0800

Item(s):ATH AD900X (Modded)

Package includes: Everything. Cable, H/P. Box

Price: SOLD!

Warranty: 1 month personal warranty

Dealing method:COD in KL/Subang

Location of seller:KL

Contact method/details:PM me

Age of item:Less than 1 year

---

Item(s) conditions:Pristine, with Detachable Cable Mod

Picture: Will provide via Whatsapp on demand

Reason for sale:Upgrading

Pristine and new ATH-AD900X with detachable cable mod for sale.

Very good for gaming

[WTS] AKG K702 For Sale! RM600

tat3179 — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 14:51:59 +0800

Item(s):AKG K702

Package includes:Box, H/P Cable, Basically Everything

Price:SOLD!

Warranty:1 month personal warranty

Dealing method:COD Subang Jaya

Location of seller: Subang Jaya

Contact method/details:PM me

Age of item:10 months

---

Item(s) conditions:9/10. Hardly used

Picture:Will Whatsapp on demand

Reason for sale:Too many headphones - Upgrading to TOTL headphones

[WTB] Aune X7S - BLACK ONLY

tat3179 — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:15:20 +0800

Item(s): Aune X7S

Package includes: Everything, if possible

Price: Offer Me

Warranty:

Dealing method: COD preferred

Location of seller: Selangor, Subang Jaya

Contact method/details:PM Me

[WTS} HyperX Cloud Revolver For Sale!

tat3179 — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:35:36 +0800

Item(s):HyperX Cloud Revolver

Package includes:Box, Cables, Headset, Mic....basically everything

Price: RM300

Warranty: 1 Week Personal Warranty

Dealing method:COD Subang Jaya

Location:Subang Jaya

Contact method/details:PM me
---

Item(s) conditions:Almost Mint

Picture:Will whatsaop

Reason for sale:Not using

[WTS] HyperX Cloud Revolver For Sale!

tat3179 — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:34:46 +0800

Item(s):HyperX Cloud Revolver

Package includes:Box, Cables, Headset, Mic....basically everything

Price: RM300

Warranty: 1 Week Personal Warranty

Dealing method:COD Subang Jaya

Location:Subang Jaya

Contact method/details:PM me
---

Item(s) conditions:Almost Mint

Picture:Will whatsaop

Reason for sale:Not using

WTB Seinheisser HD800s

tat3179 — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 18:42:45 +0800

Want to buy a pair of HD800s

Please PM me offers

Thanks

Custom blood developed

tat3179 — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:43:29 +0800

QUOTE

Custom blood comes of age
By John Hewitt on June 29, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Blood
Share This Article

The ‘one size fits all’ model never worked in the blood business and getting the right blood to the right person at the time remains a significant challenge. England has been at the forefront of blood research, so it’s no surprise that when they make a big announcement about new strategic intents and goals to create custom blood solutions, people take notice.

Down through the ages, the redcoats have always shown more than a passing fancy for all things crimson. If there is any doubt of this just take a look at the author affiliations for research both new and old in things like wound healing, transfusions, or blood substitutes. The research proposal just put forth by the British National Health Service last Thursday outlines several bold new initiatives. But the one that has people talking now is their commitment to use custom lab-grown blood in two patients within two years.

As shown below, the process begins with the extraction of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, and culturing them with adult stem cells. The umbilical cells used are of a specific type known as mesenchymal cells. These cells lack any clearly defined polarity and are typically found cushioned within an extracellular matrix. Depending of their internal programming, and the cues they receive from their surroundings, these cells can develop into connective tissues, bone, or cartilage. They also can become the cells that make up the lymphatic and circulatory systems, as well as those cells that flow through them. In other words, they have everything it takes to become red blood cells.

Blood

A ready-made supply of special purpose cells would be good for more than just those folks with rare or otherwise complex blood types. It might come in hand, for example, in replacing the blood cells that are compromised in those with rare disorders like sickle-cell anemia. The first major goal of the upcoming clinical trial will be to compare of the survival of the manufactured red cells to that of standard red cells from blood donors. The plan will not be to do a full transfusion right away, but rather first inject just a few spoonfuls to see what kind of reaction they might get.

If the procedure is a success, the door will be flung open to a new age of customized smart blood. Blood that is made to order and optimized just for you. Patients submitting to demanding operations may no longer have to endure the pot luck that is the modern day blood infusion: basically a white elephant gift exchange where you are more likely to be infused with a sang-froid purple sludge than the fresh and ideally-matched blood of a king or queen that you brought with you.

Jangan hisap dara

Driverless car by 2020?

tat3179 — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 10:30:35 +0800

QUOTE

Google's self driving cars hit streets

AAP JULY 01, 2015 9:34AM SHARE

THE latest models of Google's self driving cars are now cruising the streets near the internet company's Silicon Valley headquarters as an ambitious project to transform the way people get around shifts into its next phase.

THIS marks the first time that the pod-like, two seat vehicles have been allowed on public roads since Google unveiled the next generation of its self driving fleet more than a year ago.

The cars had previously been confined to a private track on a former Air Force base located about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco.
Google announced a month ago that it would begin testing the curious looking cars, but hadn't specified the timing until recently when it disclosed the vehicles are driving up to 25 miles per hour on the roads around its Mountain View, California, office.
Google had installed its robotic driving technology in Lexus sports utility vehicles and Toyota Priuses during the first few years of testing before developing the smaller prototype.

The new models are designed to work without a steering wheel or brake pedal, although the vehicles will be equipped with those features during the initial runs on public roads.

A human will also ride in the cars to take control in emergencies, just as has been the case with the self driving Lexus vehicles during the past six years.
The debut of the pod-like car will help Google get a better understanding on how well its technology works around other vehicles steered by people.
Last year, Google told reporters it hoped to have a 100 of the self driving prototypes in its fleet by now, but the company said it has only built 25 of them so far.

All 25 have received permission from California's Department of Motor Vehicles to drive neighbourhood roads.

If all goes well, Google hopes to gain regulatory clearance to remove the steering wheel, brake pedal and emergency driver from the prototype.

Company executives have expressed hope that self driving cars using its technology will be joining the flow of daily traffic by the end of this decade.

The earlier models of Google's self driving cars had been involved in 13 minor accidents through more than 1.8 million miles on the roads, according to the company.

Google blamed the collisions on other vehicles in every instance except one when the company says one of its own employees was steering.

I can't wait for the tech be widespread in all carmakers.

Imagine going to work stuck in Federal highway jam and you surf the net waiting to go to work....

Hydrogen Economy Soon?

tat3179 — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 16:15:57 +0800

QUOTE

Stanford scientists split water with device that runs on an ordinary AAA battery

45
SHARES

Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
AUGUST 26, 2014 0
Researchers from Stanford have found a way to split water into oxygen and hydrogen using very little energy; the hydrogen they obtain could be used to power fuel cells in zero-emissions vehicles.

I’m quite excited for cars that run on hydrogen, which are set to hit the market in 2015; but while they are always presented as “zero emission cars”, many of the hydrogen cars will actually use hydrogen obtained with natural gas – which is still a fossil fuel and still has considerable emissions. Hopefully, that will only be a temporary stage, and pretty soon, manufacturers will move on to greener, more sustainable solutions – like this project from Stanford University.

A team working there found a way to separate hydrogen from water cheaply and efficiently, producing water electrolysis only powered by a battery. The battery sends an electric current through two electrodes that split liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts, the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive and abundant nickel and iron.

“Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It’s quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage.”
In addition to producing hydrogen, the same technique could be used to obtain chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide, an important industrial chemical.

Hydrogen cars and carbon emissions

Stanford scientists have developed a low-cost device that uses an ordinary AAA battery to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas. Gas bubbles are produced by electrodes made of inexpensive nickel and iron.

The auto industry has considered developing hydrogen fuel cell as a promising alternative to the gasoline engine for decades, using fuel cell technology. Fuel cell technology is basically water splitting in reverse – it’s like creating water, and getting energy in the process. Basically, the fuel cell stores hydrogen which reacts with the oxygen from the air to create electricity which powers the car. The only by-product is water – no emissions whatsoever.

Earlier this year, Hyundai began leasing fuel cell vehicles in Southern California, but it’s still a local thing. In 2015, Toyota and Honda will hit the market, selling fuel cell cars. The only problem with this technology is a cheap way of obtaining hydrogen – something for which the Stanford team proposes a simple yet surprising solution.

“It’s been a constant pursuit for decades to make low-cost electrocatalysts with high activity and long durability,” Dai said. “When we found out that a nickel-based catalyst is as effective as platinum, it came as a complete surprise.”

This could save time and a lot of money, potentially taking gas guzzling cars out of the streets in the long run. The discovery wouldn’t have been possible without Stanford graduate student Ming Gong, co-lead author of the study.

“Ming discovered a nickel-metal/nickel-oxide structure that turns out to be more active than pure nickel metal or pure nickel oxide alone,” Dai said. “This novel structure favors hydrogen electrocatalysis, but we still don’t fully understand the science behind it.”
Water electrolysis was, of course is not a new thing. The novely comes with the nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst, which significantly reduces the voltage necessary for electrolysis.

“The electrodes are fairly stable, but they do slowly decay over time,” he said. “The current device would probably run for days, but weeks or months would be preferable. That goal is achievable based on my most recent results”
The next step in their research is to make the entire process fully sustainable – that is, obtain the energy for the batteries through solar panels – and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be successful in their attempts.

“Hydrogen is an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy on the grid,” said Dai. “We’re very glad that we were able to make a catalyst that’s very active and low cost. This shows that through nanoscale engineering of materials we can really make a difference in how we make fuels and consume energy.”

Read more: http://www.zmescience.com/research/technol.../#ixzz3e9brGjSF

What's fascinating about this research are the researchers are all from Mainland China and did the breakthrough in Ang Moh universities, not in top Chinese Unis.

China's brain drain is very serious.

Are you ready.....?

tat3179 — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:04:32 +0800

QUOTE

Bangladesh hopes to send 500,000 workers to M’sia
FMT Reporters | June 25, 2015
Recent “boat people” crisis hastens new recruitment agreement between Malaysia and Bangladesh.
bangladesh workers

DHAKA: Bangladesh expects to recruit 500,000 workers over the next six months to work in Malaysia under a new recruitment agreement hammered out by the two countries on Wednesday.
The workers would be offered a three-year contract with the option to extend it by another year.
The new agreement was hastened by the recent influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar by boat that precipitated a humanitarian crisis that attracted international attention.
According to an official of Bangladesh’s expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, the earlier government-to-government (G2G) system, agreed upon in November 2012, “failed to live up to the Bangladeshi workers’ expectation”.
Over 100,000 Bangladeshis were reportedly victims of cheating by manpower touts and human traffickers in the last two years.
“Under the new agreement, called Business-to-Business (B-B) mechanism, recruitment can be run through private recruitment agencies of the two countries,” said Kazi Abul Kalam, joint secretary of the ministry, in a report carried in The Daily Star yesterday.
Bangladesh Expatriates Welfare Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain and Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi signed the agreement in Putrajaya.
Zahid said legal workers from Bangladesh are welcome in Malaysia and applications for employment would be received online and monitored by local government agencies.
Khandker said the new agreement would ensure that would-be workers were not exploited or charged unreasonable fees, while employers would be made responsible for the welfare and security of the workers.
When the old agreement was signed in 2012, Khandker had then said that at least 50,000 Bangladeshis would be sent to Malaysia within a year and 100,000 by the following year.
The Bangladeshi Manpower Employment and Training Department has set up an online database for workers with more than 1.4 million registering. However only 7,000 have been sent to Malaysia since April 2013.
Malaysia had earlier put in restrictions that limited new Bangladeshi workers to seek employment only in plantations and not in other sectors.

I wonder how would the centre of KL look 3 years from now?

Like little Dhaka I presume?

Padan Muka Mahathir

tat3179 — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 10:48:26 +0800

QUOTE

1MDB hides behind ‘gov’t secrecy’, laments Dr M

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has slammed 1MDB for hiding behind "government secrecy” to shield itself from his repeated criticisms of the troubled investment fund.

"To all my criticisms, 1MDB can only say that they are all wrong. But there are no proofs given. The answer is always about secrecy of government matters."

He said that Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), the precursor to 1MDB, had refused to allow its oil wells to be used as collateral for its loans.

“The federal government as guarantor for the RM5 billion loan was because Terengganu rejected the absurd.

"Why should Terengganu pull out of the federal government’s initial proposal that its oil wells future production be the collateral?

"No cabinet paper on the 5 billion loan was presented. Produce the paper for the public to see. Of course you will say cabinet papers are secret," Mahathir wrote on his blog today.

“If the loan is not off-budget then show in the government yearly budget provision for raising the loans. There is none.”

QUOTE

Mahathir likens 1MDB to APs sellers

1MDB is akin to rent seekers who sell approved permits (APs), contracts and licences, said former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

In a new posting on his blog today, Mahathir argued that when 1MDB bought government land at 1/50th of the market price, the government lost a huge sum of money.

"When 1MDB sells the land, it is merely taking what should be government earnings from the sale. That process is no different from people who sell APs, contracts and licence. Is this how 1MDB expects to make money?

"Is 1MDB a strategic development company? What has it developed - nothing. Even TRX (Tun Razak Exchange) is all fence and nothing else."

Mahathir mudah lupa.

During his time as PM how many projects he initiated he put under OSA so the opposition cannot scrutinize and comment on them

Now Najib do the same on 1MDB he go moan that Najib go hide behind "government secrecy" whose laws he proposed in the first place.

And then he got the cheek to say that 1MDB is like AP sellers when he is the one that set up the AP system and encouraged them during his time as PM in the first place.

Farking old hypocrite.

Mahathir's BMF Scandal

tat3179 — Wed, 06 May 2015 14:43:25 +0800

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Sos Malaysian Insider today.

He might not have stolen the money, but the fact loads of money is still lost during his administration.

So is Dr M a hypocrite to go after Najib then?

We Pay more taxes....

tat3179 — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:20:46 +0800

QUOTE

Health Ministry’s budget cut will not affect patient care, says minister -

The RM300 million budget cut this year was prompted by the drop in global oil prices and is not expected to affect patient care activities, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said today.

Adding that it was a short-term matter, he said that his ministry would scale down on lavish functions and attendance at conferences, as part of cost-cutting measures.

There had been several reports that the cut would be bigger next year.

He said that there has been no decision on any budget cut for next year.
"No. no, I don't think we have made any policy for next year, this is just for 2015.

"Anyway, this is not affecting us in managing patients, the areas where the budget is down is not related to clinical or patient care," he said today after launching 14 medical books at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur. – April 30, 2015.

MORE TO COME

Yea....we pay GST, minyak apa pun naik so that they can cut more services to the Rakyat....

cukur ade BN, cukur cukur

Son, I am de proud, becoz

tat3179 — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 14:49:51 +0800

QUOTE

Fast and Furious 7 creates M’sian cinema history
FMT Reporters | April 10, 2015
The huge fan base for the franchise in the country is the reason for the box-office hit.
F7

PETALING JAYA: Fast & Furious 7, the latest franchise, has broken all box-office records beating Transformers: Age of Extinction and Iron Man 3 to become the biggest film opening of all time in Malaysian cinema history.
However United International Pictures Malaysia (UIP) would not reveal the sales figures due to industry practice and company policy.
It has been reported that Fast & Furious 7 earned US$392.2mil (RM1.4bil) worldwide on its opening weekend.
The film raked in US$143.6mil (RM520mil) from 4,004 locations in the United States making it the best in the series.
The franchise has made a total of US$2bil (RM7.2bil) worldwide since the first movie hit the cinemas in 2001.
UIP managing director Nicholas Yong said in a press statement the Fast and Furious franchise had a large fan base in Malaysia, which contributed to the outstanding results.
The film, directed by Sawarak-born James Wan, stars Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.

Sos Sarawak

Comparisons between

tat3179 — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 11:14:46 +0800

I got a feeling when Dr M woke up yesterday morning and found out that LKY passed, he must have spent some time going through the obits to see how others have judged LKY's life and decisions.

I bet when he read through all the tributes and criticisms, he too must be wondering when it is his turn, and Dr M is quite old already, would the world write about him as much as LKY and judge him likewise.

I find loads of similarities between LKY and Dr M really. Almost like twin brothers politically and in thinking.

Both of them kinda remind me of Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi in the Three Kingdoms, equally skilled political and battlefield tacticians and fierce enemies in the battlefield, but soul mates in strategy, thinking and philosophy. Dr M fought for the Malays and Bumi rights fiercely, LKY fought for equal rights as fiercely, and clashed with each other without quarter, but I think both men probably admired and respected each other in intellect, political and governing skills, if grudgingly.

Consider the following: -

1. Dr M and LKY both lived through the British and Japanese occupation, and got their formatative philosophies through them.

2. Both are from the professional class. LKY is a lawyer, Dr M a doctor. They view problems similarly, see a problem and look for a cure or solution directly without considering other factors. Solve the problem, no matter what it is without hesitation or sentiment.

3. Both are the best of their communities and backgrounds. Dr M is one of the very first doctors the bumis produced, LKY was the best student in Singapore.

4. Both treat their enemies without mercy, and brook no critisism unchallanged and unanswered.

5. Both thought think less of the people that followed and with a certain contempt, and that they are not worthy of their skill and intellect. There is a certain arrogance with both of them.

6. Both of them are not afraid to critisize, advise others and scold, not matter who, no matter how powerful the countries are. Both are not afraid to offend and say controversial things.

7. Both are admired, respected, reviled and hated in equal measure.

8. Both are famous internationally. And have certain influence with world leaders would listen to them, but I think LKY has more of an edge there.

9. Both are famously hard, no nonsense workers. Very hands on and love to micro manage things as best of their abilities.

10. Both have contempt of western values, liberalism and western democracy. Both agree on Asian Values.

11. Both loved their wives dearly. I know LKY loved his wife very much, but I suspect Dr M loved Dr Hasmah very much too.

12. Both have sons in the running a state.

Al-kisah Jho Low - Towers of Secrecy

tat3179 — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 19:13:22 +0800

QUOTE

TOWERS OF SECRECY
Well Connected at Home, Young Malaysian Has an Appetite for New York

By LOUISE STORY and STEPHANIE SAULFEB. 8, 2015

In early 2010, a young Malaysian financier named Jho Low began making some very expensive real estate deals in the United States.

First, a shell company connected to Mr. Low, famous back home for partying with the likes of Paris Hilton, purchased a $23.98 million apartment in the Park Laurel condominiums in Manhattan. Three years later, that shell company sold the condo to another shell company, this one controlled by someone even more prominent in Malaysia: the film-producing stepson of the prime minister.

A similar transaction was playing out on the other side of the country. Mr. Low bought a contemporary mansion in Beverly Hills for $17.5 million, then turned around and sold it, once again to the prime minister’s stepson. (Read a summary of this article in Malay.)

Mr. Low also went shopping at the Time Warner Center condominiums overlooking Central Park. He toured a 76th-floor penthouse, once home to the celebrity couple Jay Z and Beyoncé, then in early 2011 used yet another shell company to buy it for $30.55 million, one of the highest prices ever in the building.

At the time, Mr. Low said he represented a group of investors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the transaction. Mr. Low recently told The New York Times that he had not purchased the penthouse for investors, and that it was owned by his family’s trust.

One thing is clear: As with nearly two-thirds of the apartments at the Time Warner Center, a dark-glass symbol of New York’s luxury condominium boom, the people behind Penthouse 76B cannot be found in any public real estate records. The trail ends with Jho Low.

Mr. Low, 33, is a skillful, and more than occasionally flamboyant, iteration of the sort of operative essential to the economy of the global superrich. Just as many of the wealthy use shell companies to keep the movement of money opaque, they also use people like Mr. Low. Whether shopping for new business opportunities or real estate, he has often done so on behalf of investors or, as he likes to say, friends. Whether the money belongs to others or is his own, the lines are frequently blurry, the identity of the buyer elusive.

Mr. Low’s lavish spending has raised eyebrows and questions from Kuala Lumpur to New York, where he has made a boldface name for himself as a “whale” at clubs like the Pink Elephant and 1Oak. The New York Post once called him “the mystery man of city club scene,” adding, “Speculation is brewing over where Low is getting his money from.”

One answer resides at least indirectly in his relationship, going back to his school days in London, with the family of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak. Mr. Low has played an important role in bringing Middle Eastern money into numerous deals involving the Malaysian government, and he helped set up, and has continued to advise, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund that the prime minister oversees.

Now, that relationship has become part of an uproar gathering around Mr. Najib and threatening his already shaky hold on power. In Parliament, in political cartoons and in social media, Mr. Najib’s critics tend to argue that he is too close to Mr. Low.

Much of the concern, even in Mr. Najib’s own long-ruling party, involves questions about the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. More broadly, though, the prime minister’s trappings of wealth and the widely broadcast tales of his wife’s outsize spending — the diamond jewelry, the collection of extravagantly costly Hermès Birkin bags — have become a focus of Malaysians’ rising unease with their government’s institutionalized culture of patronage and graft.

The Hidden Money Buying Up New York Real Estate

“We are very concerned,” Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, a member of Malaysian royalty and an independent-minded elder statesman of Mr. Najib’s party, said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur last summer. “We want people of integrity to be up there.”

Increasingly, the glare turns to Mr. Najib’s stepson, Riza Aziz, and so to Mr. Aziz’s friendship with Mr. Low. With Mr. Low’s help, Mr. Aziz runs a Hollywood company that produced the films “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Dumb and Dumber To.” He has spent tens of millions more on the homes in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, transactions that involved Mr. Low, The Times found.

“That’s a lot of money,” Sivarasa Rasiah, an opposition lawmaker, said of Mr. Aziz’s spending. He added, “Every U.S. report on him talks about family wealth. Family who?”

While Mr. Aziz has previously said he is personally wealthy, he declined to explain how he had acquired his money. Mr. Najib’s office, in a statement, said, “The prime minister does not track how much Mr. Aziz earns or how such earnings are reinvested.” As for the prime minister himself, the statement said he had “received inheritance.”

In a statement provided by a spokesman, Mr. Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, said he “is a friend of Mr. Riza Aziz and his family.” His real estate transactions with Mr. Aziz were made “on an arm’s-length basis,” he said, adding that he had never purchased real estate in the United States for the prime minister’s family or “engaged in any wrongful conduct regarding any financial matters for the prime minister and his family.”

At the Time Warner Center, The Times found, the 76th-floor penthouse, purchased through a shell company called 80 Columbus Circle (NYC) L.L.C., is one of at least a dozen that can be traced to people with close ties to current or former high-ranking foreign officials, or to the officials themselves.

According to one member of the condominium board there, while the board understood that the penthouse had been bought for investors, it did not ascertain their identities. At the Park Laurel, where Mr. Najib’s stepson owns, the board did not respond to questions about whether it had examined the financing of the purchase.

In fact, in-depth scrutiny of real estate deals is not required. International anticorruption organizations have criticized this lack of inquiry — not just by real estate brokers and condo boards, but by banks, lawyers and the federal government.

“People should ask the questions, ‘Why is it that this individual is bringing in millions of dollars into America, and how was it acquired?’” said Charmian Gooch, co-founder of Global Witness, a nongovernmental organization that works against corruption around the world.

THE MAKING OF A FINANCIER

To mention Mr. Low in Malaysia is to conjure the image of a baby-faced young man in rimless glasses and a loose black V-neck, holding a magnum of Cristal and surrounded by celebrities. But if he is sometimes derided as a tabloid party boy who once flew a group of bottle girls from New York to Malaysia, the reality is that the clubbing life, for Mr. Low, was actually a way to build a booming business managing money for his friends.

“I think a relationship with an investor is not just about managing their money well,” he said in an extensive interview with The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, in 2010. “Although it is not in my job scope, but if my friend says he wants a flight urgently to somewhere or he wants a dinner reservation at a well-known place, I’ll do my best to make it happen.” He also said, “I am usually the concierge service that arranges everything, and thus my name is all over the place.”

Around George Town, on Penang Island, where Jho grew up, the Lows were seen as a family of somewhat deflated affluence, according to several businessmen who have known them for years. The father, Larry, was an executive for an investment holding company called MWE Holdings, but he split with his partner in the mid-1990s and faded from the local business scene. Still only a teenager, Jho, the youngest of three children, emerged as the family’s best hope for the future.

RESPOND
There was money for education abroad, and in London, while attending the ancient and elite Harrow school, Mr. Low became friends with Mr. Najib’s stepson, Mr. Aziz, who was studying at the London School of Economics. He also grew close to Mr. Aziz’s mother, Rosmah Mansor, who stayed for months at a time in an apartment she kept there.

In college, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Low kept up his ties back home by running a Malaysian student group. But he also came to know the children of prominent Jordanian and Kuwaiti families. Even before graduating, he was managing money for what he later described as “my family and close Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian friends.”

After college, many of his early business deals were based in Malaysia — helping a Kuwaiti bank purchase a high-rise complex called the Oval, and bringing Middle Eastern money into the country to finance a commercial zone in the south and a new financial district in the capital. By 2007, he had formed an investment group that included a Malaysian prince, a Kuwaiti sheikh and a friend from the United Arab Emirates who went on to become ambassador to the United States and Mexico.

Two years later, he was pitching his idea for a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. His plan was to invest public money for the public good through a fund tied to one of the country’s oil-producing states, and so he began wooing the sultan of Terengganu, who was also Malaysia’s king under the nation’s rotating monarchy.

It was all about making connections, making friends. Success, he told The Star, is “attributable to being at the right place and right time and meeting the right people coupled with a trusting relationship.”

In April 2009, those ingredients all came together for Mr. Low. The stepfather of his friend Mr. Aziz became prime minister of Malaysia.

A POLITICAL LEGACY

Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, center, leaving the Time Warner Center in September 2014. Mr. Najib met Mr. Low briefly there that week. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Mr. Najib, 61, has a deep pedigree in Malaysian politics. His father, Tun Razak, was the country’s second prime minister, in the 1970s. His uncle was its third. His cousin is now defense minister.

Mr. Najib has risen through the political ranks: member of Parliament at 23; chief minister of his home state; minister of education, defense and finance; and deputy prime minister.

The family is tightly intertwined with Malaysia’s leading political party, the United Malays National Organization, whose long hold on power owes much to its close relationship with the country’s business elite. That closeness, in turn, has helped engender a culture of corruption, said Zaid Ibrahim, a former minister of legal affairs and judicial reform who served alongside Mr. Najib. Inflated government contracts are the norm, widely accepted because recipients simply turn around and donate to the party, he said.

“You know why corruption is very high in Malaysia?” he said. “It’s because the party in power is synonymous with the state.”

As The Times wrote in the first part of this series, while shell companies like limited liability companies and trusts can be used for secrecy, they are frequently used for other purposes, including avoiding exposure to lawsuits or double taxation. They are also used in multiparty real estate transactions. This was the case several years ago with family members of a reporter on this project, Louise Story. And they are used in inheritance matters and investment strategies.

That point was underscored in the State Department’s 2010 human rights report, which said, “Officials often engaged in corrupt practices with impunity” and noted “a broadly held perception of widespread corruption and cronyism within the governing coalition and in government institutions.”

There have been no proven corruption allegations against Mr. Najib. However, he has been dogged by questions, seized upon by his political opponents, stemming from a long-running bribery inquiry in France involving submarines he commissioned from a French company while he was defense minister.

The French national police found documents showing that the submarine company paid more than $100 million to a company controlled by one of Mr. Najib’s close associates. In addition, one police document says, without elaboration, that Mr. Najib demanded money in exchange for a 2001 meeting in Paris.

Malaysian officials said the payments to the company controlled by Mr. Najib’s associate were for “support and coordination services”; the prime minister’s office said he received no payments and did not demand any.

Mr. Najib, who earns an annual salary of about $100,000 as prime minister, has been battered by news media reports of his wife’s lavish spending. A notable episode involved the Birkin bags: A series of photos that went viral on social media in Malaysia showed Ms. Rosmah holding at least nine of the purses. They typically cost between $9,000 and $150,000 apiece.

Rosmah Mansor with her husband, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia.
Ariff Sabri, an aide to Mr. Najib from 2000 to 2004 who joined the opposition in 2012, said the prime minister kept “piles and piles” of ringgit bills stacked in his safe. And invoices and other documents obtained by The Times show millions of dollars in jewelry ordered for Ms. Rosmah in Hong Kong in 2008 and 2009 — diamond and emerald rings, and diamond, emerald and ruby bracelets.

The prime minister’s office said, “Neither any money spent on travel, nor any jewelry purchases, nor the alleged contents of any safes are unusual for a person of the prime minister’s position, responsibilities and legacy family assets.”

For some people who have long known Mr. Najib, the lavish lifestyle that appeared to evolve with his second marriage, to Ms. Rosmah in 1987, has been a surprising — even dismaying — turn for a modest technocrat.

Last year, Mr. Najib’s younger brother, Nazir, wrote a newspaper column that tacitly jabbed at the current prime minister by praising the frugality of their father, a career government official who died in office at age 53.

When he and his brothers had asked for a swimming pool at the prime minister’s residence, Mr. Nazir wrote, “My father made it abundantly clear that while Seri Taman may be our home, the house belonged to the government and, hence, to the people. Anything spent on it would have to come from public funds, and there was no way he was going to allow the state coffers to be depleted on something as frivolous as a swimming pool. ‘What will the people think?’ he thundered.”

THE FUND

Mr. Low’s business romance with Malaysia’s king, it turned out, was short lived. But the new prime minister, Mr. Najib, was happy to have a way to benefit the nation writ large, and the sovereign wealth fund soon morphed into a new one, called 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

A billboard in Kuala Lumpur for Malaysia's strategic development company. Mr. Najib has faced questions about 1MDB. Credit Samsul Said/Reuters
Mr. Najib became chairman of the board of advisers of 1MDB, which calls itself a “strategic development company.” A close Penang friend of Mr. Low’s father became a director, and two of Mr. Low’s friends joined the staff. Mr. Low himself was not given an official role, but he is regularly consulted on its actions, according to three people who have had regular dealings with 1MDB but requested anonymity to preserve relationships.

In his statement to The Times, Mr. Low played down his role in 1MDB, saying that “from time to time and without receiving compensation,” he has given his views on various matters.

While Mr. Low has no official position with the fund, in 2012 it emerged in British court documents that he had presented a letter of support from 1MDB in his investors’ unsuccessful bid for the hotel group that includes Claridge’s. He also said the financing would be fully underwritten by Malaysian government investment funds, according to the documents.

Mr. Low and 1MDB also had dealings with an oil-drilling company called PetroSaudi International that had been founded by a Saudi businessman and a Saudi prince.

Soon after its creation, 1MDB invested $1 billion in a joint venture with PetroSaudi. A few months later, a PetroSaudi subsidiary purchased a Malaysian holding company, UBG, in which Mr. Low and his investors held a substantial stake, according to public records. News media reports did not say so, but corporate records reviewed by The Times show that a director of the PetroSaudi subsidiary was a close friend of Mr. Low named Geh Choh Hun.

PetroSaudi has told the Malaysian press that the deals were unrelated. And both men said Mr. Geh was not representing Mr. Low’s interest in the deal.

By 2011, 1MDB pulled out of the PetroSaudi joint venture. The proceeds, however, were not immediately returned to Malaysia. Instead, they ended up in a Cayman Islands company and managed by an investment firm that 1MDB only recently identified. The money was recently returned to 1MDB, the fund has said.

The Caymans maneuver has stirred an outcry even within Mr. Najib’s own party. “I don’t understand why the government carries on with 1MDB,” Daim Zainuddin, a former finance minister, said in an interview. “To me, it’s quite frightening because you don’t know what they’re doing,” he said, adding, “Why must government money be parked?”

There have been other criticisms as well — that the fund has taken on large amounts of debt and that some of its investments have benefited large donors to Mr. Najib’s party.

The prime minister’s office said that 1MDB was run by professional managers, and that many blue-chip companies do business with funds registered in the Caymans. The criticisms, it added, “need to be examined for political motivation.”

A year ago, the accounting firm KPMG refused to sign off on 1MDB’s financials, according to Nur Jazlan Mohamed, chairman of Parliament’s audit committee. KPMG declined to comment for this article. The fund, which described the parting as amicable, found a new auditor: Deloitte.

Mr. Nur Jazlan, a member of Mr. Najib’s party, said the Deloitte blessing gave him comfort. “They wouldn’t sanction the accounts if there was a problem,” he said. Still, he acknowledged that “conditions are fertile” for fraud, given the scant oversight of 1MDB.

“Yes, they make money, but should they make more money?” Mr. Nur Jazlan said. Yet as long as 1MDB shows a profit, he added, it is unlikely that there will be any serious inquiry into whether money went missing. “Money makes money,” he said. “You can basically hide a lot of things in there as well. Then, the party doing scrutiny of management is the board, which is appointed by who? And chaired by who? The prime minister.”

LUXURY HOME PURCHASES

A shell company connected to Mr. Low purchased an apartment in the Park Laurel in Manhattan for $23.9 million. It later sold the unit to a shell company controlled by the stepson of Malaysia's prime minister. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
The year before Mr. Low showed up at the Time Warner Center, the New York news media reported the $23.98 million purchase of an apartment in the Park Laurel, a few blocks away on West 63rd Street.

The purchase, the reports said, had been made by a shell company on behalf of two residents of Switzerland — Peter Edward Chadney and Simone Cécile von Graffenried Simperl. Those reports were mistaken. The Swiss “buyers” were actually Rothschild bankers. The real party behind the shell company was Mr. Low, whose spokesman acknowledged to The Times that the condo had been bought by a trust benefiting his family.

Nearly three years later, the Lows sold it to Mr. Aziz’s shell company for $33.5 million in cash — a 40 percent appreciation.

The sale involved a string of shell companies. In one spot on the property transfer, Mr. Aziz is listed as the “sole director” of Sorcem Investments, a British Virgin Islands company that was behind the shell company that bought the Park Laurel condo.

The transfer of the Beverly Hills house from Mr. Low to Mr. Aziz was even more opaque.

The Beverly Hills home purchased for $17.5 million by a shell company tied to Mr. Low.
After Mr. Low’s shell company, 912 North Hillcrest Road (BH) L.L.C., paid $17.5 million for the home — 11,573 square feet, with five bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, private gardens and a glowing pyramid in the reflecting pool — his trust sold ownership of that shell company to a corporate entity controlled by Mr. Aziz, both men acknowledged to The Times.

Legally, however, the property itself never changed hands. The same shell company appears as owner in the public property records of Los Angeles County. It is as if nothing ever happened.

Mr. Aziz confirmed that he owned the New York condo as well as the Beverly Hills house, which is undergoing extensive rebuilding.

Mr. Low said the transactions were done at fair market value. He sold the Beverly Hills property, he said, because he had found another nearby. That house cost $39 million.

Back in New York, the Time Warner Center was a natural destination because friends of Mr. Low already owned apartments there. There was also a prominent Malaysian — the brother of Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary, a major beneficiary of government contracts and a generous backer of Mr. Najib’s political party.

With the penthouses on the top five floors of the north tower came wraparound views — the Catskills far off to the northwest, the Statue of Liberty just beyond the southern tip of Manhattan, and Central Park right next door. Mr. Low went to view Penthouse 76B with a retinue of women and told people involved in the deal that he would pay $30.55 million — all cash, as in his other real estate purchases.

One member of the condominium board and another person with direct knowledge of the deal said they believed that Mr. Low was buying for a group of investors. One of them recalled Mr. Low saying that a main investor was the family of Prime Minister Najib.

In its statement to The Times, the prime minister’s office said Mr. Najib had no financial interest or any agreement related to any Time Warner condominiums.

Mr. Low's statement said that the condo was owned by his family’s trust and that he and other family members “stay there from time to time when they are in New York.”

The professionals who helped Mr. Low buy the Time Warner condo included the same Rothschild bankers as in the Park Laurel condo transaction, as well as John Opar, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling, who did not respond to inquiries. One of the bankers, Ms. Simperl, said she could not discuss the client, who in the same time period briefly owned a $33 million condo at the Trump International, across the street from the Time Warner Center.

Janice Chang, the broker the Douglas Elliman firm identified as representing the buyer, said, “We work with a lot of people; sometimes we know them and sometimes we don’t.” She added: “They’re very confidential. We try not to pry.”

HELLO TO HOLLYWOOD

From left, Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland and Jho Low at a premiere of "The Wolf of Wall Street" in December 2013. Credit Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Mr. Aziz’s film company, Red Granite Pictures, was largely unheard-of when it took over the financing of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” announcing its intentions with a party at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, complete with a fireworks extravaganza and concert by Kanye West. The Hollywood Reporter called it “an audacious hello to the movie industry.”

Neither of its founders had the kind of résumé that reflected the experience, or the income, to bankroll a movie company. Mr. Aziz, now 38, had been a junior-level banker at HSBC. His partner, Joey McFarland, was a small-time investor from Kentucky whose entertainment-business apprenticeship included booking paid party appearances for celebrities like Ms. Hilton.

All of which led to a certain amount of curiosity in Hollywood about who was financing Red Granite.

Over time, the accounts seemed to change.

Interviewing a job candidate early on, Mr. Aziz said the financing came from “sovereign wealth,” according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.

When Irwin Winkler, an executive producer of “The Wolf of Wall Street” inquired, he was told that Red Granite had “a backer in Malaysia,” he recalled in an interview. He was introduced to the backer, and it was Mr. Low. “He’s the face, as far as I could see, of the financing,” Mr. Winkler said.

At the film’s December 2013 premiere party at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, several people said, Mr. Low had been introduced to them as the financier. He is thanked in the film’s credits.

The Malaysian explanations ended about a year ago, after Red Granite’s financing became the subject of persistent questions, especially from The Sarawak Report, a London-based news site that focuses on Malaysia.

Mr. Low says he has not put money into Red Granite or its films. And last summer, a new money man emerged. In an interview with The Times for an article on Red Granite, Mr. Aziz said the principal backer was Mohamed Ahmed Badawy al-Husseiny, chief executive of an Abu Dhabi government-owned company, Aabar Investments, that has done deals with Mr. Low. Mr. Aziz noted that “The Wolf of Wall Street” had received New York tax breaks. He said there were other investors, but recently declined to identify them. “There is no Malaysian money” in Red Granite’s films, he said.

Even so, both Mr. Low and Mr. Husseiny have been involved with Malaysian government funds, including 1MDB.

Mr. Husseiny’s company, Aabar, had been a partner with Mr. Low in the failed Claridge’s bid that was backed by 1MDB. Aabar has also done business with affiliates of a company called SRC International, which was spun off from 1MDB and is now owned by the Ministry of Finance.

Aabar also did a deal with a company outside Malaysia that SRC had helped create, according to two people involved with the transaction. Money from that deal was then set aside to be paid out to other corporate entities. That money was described as consulting fees for Mr. Husseiny and Mr. Low, the people involved said. Similar arrangements existed in other SRC deals, they said they were told by people at SRC.

SRC’s managing director, a friend of Mr. Low named Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, said that to the best of his knowledge, neither Mr. Low nor Mr. Husseiny had received fees from deals involving SRC or its affiliates. Mr. Low said that he had not consulted for SRC International Sdn Bhd, the Malaysia-based SRC.

In a response from his lawyer, Mr. Husseiny did not answer questions about SRC. His investment in Red Granite, he said, was “personal money.”

DISCONTENT AT HOME

Just before Christmas, while visiting Hawaii, Mr. Najib played golf with one of his international allies — President Obama.

It was “golf diplomacy,” the prime minister said when he was criticized in Malaysia for golfing while the country suffered through its worst flooding in many years.

It was also the continuation of Mr. Najib’s long effort to draw his country closer to Washington. Earlier last year, Mr. Obama made an official visit to Malaysia, the first by an American president since 1966. Afterward, he and Mr. Najib said they would “elevate” relations to a “comprehensive partnership” of political and economic ties.

A White House spokesman did not respond to inquiries about the president’s relationship with Mr. Najib.

Even as Mr. Najib’s diplomatic standing has risen — Malaysia was recently elected to a two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council — his political star has been falling back home.

Mr. Najib has positioned himself as a forward-looking moderate. Yet on issues ranging from the freedom of political speech to longstanding laws that favor the Malay majority over the country's ethnic minorities, he has not made good on promised reforms that would run afoul of his more conservative opponents. One long-running case that has rankled critics at home and abroad is his government’s prosecution of a leading opposition figure, Anwar Ibrahim, on sodomy charges; a ruling on Mr. Anwar’s appeal is expected any day.

In the 2013 elections, the opposition won the popular vote for the first time in more than four decades. Mr. Najib kept his job only because the allocation of seats in Parliament was weighted to favor rural areas, where his party’s coalition was strong. Within hours of the announcement, crowds filled the streets of Kuala Lumpur in protest.

One of the toughest areas for Mr. Najib’s party was Mr. Low’s home state, Penang.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, Mr. Low helped a newly formed group, the 1Malaysia Penang Welfare Club. The club gave out free food and beer, as well as “lucky draw” tickets for bicycles and other prizes, and Mr. Low flew in musicians like Busta Rhymes and Ludacris for what was described as a nonpolitical concert.

Mr. Low, pedaling at center, transported Busta Rhymes in George Town, Malaysia, in 2013. Mr. Low invited popular musicians for a party organized by the 1Malaysia Penang Welfare Club. Credit Malay Mail Online
The club’s leader was Mr. Low’s close friend, Mr. Geh, who said the mission of the group was charity. But opposition figures in Penang said the prizes and concert were aimed at recruiting votes for Mr. Najib’s party.

“Jho wanted to show that he could call the shots in Penang,” said Lim Guan Eng, the chief minister and an opposition member.

In the end, the governing party won only a quarter of the parliamentary races in Penang, and Mr. Lim was re-elected.

Since then, Mr. Najib’s standing has grown only more precarious, as criticism has spread from the opposition to factions of his own party.

Over the summer, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who led the country for 22 years and retains considerable influence, publicly denounced Mr. Najib and called on him to reform 1MDB. And while speculation that Mr. Najib would be pushed out at the annual party congress in November proved unfounded, weeks later, an official from his party called for a police investigation of 1MDB and said he would file a complaint against the prime minister if no action was taken.

Continue reading the main story
In January, 1MDB officials responded to the controversy by appointing a new president, a banker named Arul Kanda. The appointment created its own flurry of questions.

In 2008, as Mr. Low was working to bring Middle Eastern money to Malaysia, he helped a Malaysian bank, RHB Capital, raise money from the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, where Mr. Arul soon became an executive. The next year, Mr. Arul joined a board of RHB.

In mid-January, the Malaysian press reported that Mr. Arul said that any insinuations about connections to “certain individuals” were unfair. “My C.V. should speak for itself,” he said.

AN EVOLVING IMAGE

Last September, Mr. Najib traveled to the United States for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. He and his wife usually stay at the Time Warner Center when they are in New York, and they did so this time as well — at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Photo

A foundation led by Mr. Low, second from right, pledged $25 million to IRIN, a news agency focusing on humanitarian issues, in 2014.
Mr. Low was in town, too — for a Social Good Summit sponsored by his foundation, featuring speakers like Melinda Gates, Ed Norton and Alicia Keys — and he and the prime minister engaged in a bit of a pas de deux at the Mandarin Oriental: Mr. Najib arrived in the hotel lobby with his entourage and went upstairs; within minutes, Mr. Low followed for what he later described as a “courtesy social call.” Less than 10 minutes later, the two men came downstairs and took separate exits from the building.

Lately, Mr. Low has been emphasizing that he is investing his family’s money and no longer managing money for investors and friends.

He has been broadening his family’s business portfolio, making high-profile deals with the Abu Dhabi government and other Middle Eastern investors. In 2012, his family joined a group that bought EMI Music Publishing for $2.2 billion, and the next year, it was a principal investor in the $660 million purchase of the Park Lane Hotel in New York.

After portraying himself for years as a friend of people with money — and saying in the 2010 interview with The Star that he came from a “fairly O.K. family” — he has started to say that he was born with it himself. Last fall, he did an interview with The Wall Street Journal, which reported that his grandfather had made a fortune in mining and liquor investments in Thailand. The Journal’s account — which said the Low family had a $1.75 billion fortune and called Mr. Low a “scion” — was immediately picked up in Malaysia.

As befits the modern scion, Mr. Low has lately begun trading in another asset class: contemporary art. His entry into the art market has generated buzz both for his youth and for the fact that he has become such a significant force so fast. Last summer, he made the ARTnews list of the world’s 200 leading private collectors.

The art market is even more opaque than real estate, so that list is based not on actual sales data but on the assessments of people in the industry who know about collectors’ holdings. According to two people familiar with Mr. Low’s activities in the art world, though, he has taken a liking to pop art.

“Inserting a Jho Low at the top of the market — who buys pictures over $20 million, $30 million, $40 million — it swings the market,” one of them said.

To the public, of course, the purchaser is anonymous. But among the purchases Mr. Low has been involved in, they said, are Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Dustheads,” for $48.8 million.

Asked if his family owned the painting, Mr. Low said he “did not purchase ‘Dustheads’ artwork on behalf of any investor.” Asked about his involvement in the art market, he replied, “The Low family is interested in fine art.”

Meanwhile, got /k/ malays here claim that kuci kat chinese like me are the one boloting the whole damn malaysian economy.

BTW - he claims he is merely a concierge - concierge to whom really?

Sos NYT