☕️ In Kelantan: Malaysia Airports vs Mat Rempit

1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢

GBP262 mil (RM1.4 bil) – That’s Chelsea’s pre-tax loss for 2024-25, making it the biggest pre-tax loss in Premier League history. The amount eclipses the previous record of the GBP197.5 mil loss by Manchester City in 2011. The pre-tax loss comes despite Chelsea recording GBP490.9 mil in revenue, which the club says is the second-highest total in its history. Despite the loss, the club insists it remains compliant with financial regulations such as Profit and Sustainability Rules, which allow losses of GBP105 mil over three years. Chelsea has spent more than GBP1 bil on players since 2022, signing a raft of younger players on long-term contracts.

28 years – That’s how long it has been since an Olympic Games with zero doping violations. More than 3,000 samples were collected from almost 2,000 athletes during the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games in Feb, with no anti-doping rule violations reported. It is the first Winter Games since the 1998 edition in Japan to not have a positive test during the event. In the years following the 2012 London Olympics, 31 medals were withdrawn and another 46 reallocated as a result of positive doping tests.

USD143 mil (RM577.29 mil) – That’s how much “informed” Polymarket users have made since 2024, according to researchers at Columbia Law School and the University of Haifa. The researchers analysed more than 210,000 suspicious Polymarket trades, using five criteria relating to trade timing and amounts wagered to screen for accounts that made big, bullish bets shortly before news broke. However, the researchers also acknowledged that it is possible that they flagged profitable trades that were part of a hedging strategy. The study can be found here.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

Sunway’s takeover bid fails
Sunway Bhd’s RM11 bil attempt to take over IJM Corp Bhd has officially ended, with only 33.43% of IJM shares tendered, well short of the 50% required. The offer, announced in mid-Jan, included 31.5 sen in cash plus 0.501 Sunway shares per IJM share, valuing each IJM share at RM5.65, a 28% premium at the time. Sunway said it won’t change the terms, calling it its “best and final offer.”

IJM CEO Lee Chun Fai stated the company will keep executing its strategy across construction, property, industry and infrastructure, with a RM17.3 bil order book and plans to unlock value over the next three years, including rationalising its India portfolio, listing divisions, and monetising tolled roads. He added that IJM’s valuation of RM4.80-RM5.63 per share is higher than Sunway’s offer, and its infrastructure projects are moving from development to operations, so short-term earnings don’t show the full long-term potential.

Youths take government to court over forest pledge #manahutankami
Six Malaysian youths have filed a judicial review against the government and the Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, arguing that authorities have failed to protect the country’s forests and uphold Malaysia’s pledge to maintain at least 50% forest cover. The suit, lodged in Feb, centres on a commitment first made by ex PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to keep half of Malaysia’s land under forest.

The six applicants, aged 18 to 30, include students and climate advocates and are represented by a legal team led by Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and Lim Wei Jiet. They are seeking declarations that their constitutional rights have been breached, and requiring the government to take necessary steps including through the National Land Council to restore and maintain the 50% forest level, with updates every 90 days. A report cited in the filing also warns that 4.27 mil to 4.51 mil hectares of natural forest are currently marked for conversion, which could push forest cover down to between 47.4% and 49.6%, slipping below the pledged threshold.

Gov plans medicine buffer amid global energy crunch
The government plans to set up a national strategic buffer stock to secure the supply of medicines and medical devices as the global energy crisis linked to the West Asia conflict continues to affect supply chains. This was discussed at the National Economic Action Council and forms part of longer-term efforts to strengthen supply security.

Other measures include shifting from raw resin materials to polymers for certain products, introducing a national medicine security policy through MyMedSecure, and supporting the local pharmaceutical and medical device industry. In the short term, the government will introduce a Special Access Pathway to ensure critical medicines and devices remain available, while also monitoring medicine stocks, diversifying import sources, activating emergency response plans and classifying certain items as controlled goods. The government will also ensure the safety of 31,600 Malaysian pilgrims performing Hajj this year, adding that efforts are focused on managing risks from the crisis and keeping essential supplies stable.

B100 Palm Biodiesel could help cut diesel reliance
B100, a biodiesel made entirely from palm oil, could become a more competitive and sustainable alternative fuel as uncertainty grows from the Middle East crisis. The proposal is still at the policy stage and would first be introduced within the Felda ecosystem, with the matter being raised to both PM Anwar Ibrahim and the Deputy PM. The factory price of B100 is estimated at about RM4.50 per litre depending on crude palm oil prices, and at below RM5 per litre it could help reduce reliance on diesel, stabilise domestic fuel prices and strengthen energy security.

Diesel prices in Peninsular Malaysia recently rose to RM6.02 per litre for the Apr 2-8 period, up from RM5.52, while Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan remain at RM2.15. Shabery said Felda and FGV Holdings Bhd are also looking to expand B100 processing capacity, with discussions ongoing on possible partnerships involving the private sector, government support or other parties. A pilot project using B100 has been running since 2025 with passenger vehicles older than 15 months, covering more than 50,000 km, while a separate four-month trial using tanker trucks was carried out earlier in 2024.

Then we got another issue - the food vs fuel dilemma.

Kelantan airport turns into illegal street racing hotspot
Transport Minister Anthony Loke has described illegal street racing outside Sultan Ismail Petra Airport as “sad and embarrassing.” In a Facebook post, he noted that the federal government had spent nearly RM450 mil upgrading the airport to improve connectivity for Kelantan, boost socio-economic development, and attract more tourists.

Loke said the racers’ behaviour endangers airport users and could undermine the state’s safety and economy. He also instructed the Road Transport Department Malaysia to carry out enforcement operations and warned that motorcycles of anyone caught racing would be confiscated. Local reports say the issue has been ongoing since the terminal opened on Mar 19, with 40–50 motorcycles gathering outside the departure hall to race and perform stunts. Watch the footage from the incident:

Malaysia Airports steps up patrols to stop Mat Rempit
Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad says it has stepped up enforcement at Sultan Ismail Petra Airport in collaboration with the Royal Malaysia Police and the Road Transport Department Malaysia. The airport operator said measures include restricting access to some kerbside areas after the last nightly flights using traffic cones as a precaution, aiming to prevent further illegal street racing.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

Trump: ‘A whole civilisation will die’
Late Tuesday showed no sign of Iran accepting Trump’s ultimatum on the Strait of Hormuz, in which Trump announced that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” as the deadline approached. An Iranian source said that Iran had rejected a proposal conveyed by intermediaries of a temporary ceasefire, with talks on a lasting peace that could only begin after the US and Israel end their strikes.

Iran demands that the US provide a guarantee that it will not resume strikes, and offer compensation for damages, and that any future settlement must leave Iran in control of the strait. Strikes on Iran intensified throughout the day, hitting railway and road bridges, an airport and a petrochemical plant and knocking out power lines, according to Iranian media.

Trump says US could charge for Strait of Hormuz
Speaking of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump had suggested that the US might be looking to charge a toll on the usage of the strategic waterway because “the US had won” (still sounding delulu here). Trump is still very confident that the US has achieved victory, reiterating that Iran has been militarily defeated. The claim has been made since the early days of the war, despite Iran’s sustained drone and missile attacks across the region and its continuing blockade of Hormuz.

Real AI News
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google vs China
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have reportedly started working together to stop Chinese AI competitors from extracting results from their AI models. The companies are said to be sharing information through the Frontier Model Forum, an industry nonprofit that the three tech companies founded with Microsoft in 2023. US AI companies have grave concerns that some users, especially in China, are creating imitation versions of their products that could undercut them on price and siphon away customers while posing a national security risk to the US.

OpenAI has accused Chinese firm DeepSeek of trying to “free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs”, using unauthorised distillation techniques. The technique involves an older “teacher” AI model training a newer “student” model that replicates the capabilities of the earlier system, often at a much lower cost than producing an original model from scratch. US officials have estimated that unauthorised distillation costs Silicon Valley labs billions of dollars in annual profit.

Scale AI: Scraping the internet for human work and data to teach AI
A company part-owned by Meta, Scale AI, created for “internet scraping”, has recruited experts across fields such as medicine, physics and economics to scrape the Internet on a gig basis. These people are recruited via a platform named Outlier, which has contracts with the Pentagon and US defence companies. They then comb the Internet for content and feed it to top-level AI intelligence systems for refinement.

Disturbingly, The Guardian reported that workers for the platform said they have become involved in scraping an array of other people’s personal data, in what they described as a morally uncomfortable exercise. Some reported having to harvest images of copyrighted artwork, transcribe pornographic soundtracks, or label photos of dead animals or dog faeces, and other disturbing images and content related to children. Several described scouring other people’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, tagging individuals by name, as well as their locations and their friends.

Shorts

1. Longer wait for Apple’s foldable iPhone
   The launch of the much-anticipated Apple foldable iPhone may be delayed, according to sources who said that there are issues that occurred during early test production phases. Apple was reportedly prioritising the foldable iPhone and other premium models for its Sept event this year. Is this a sign that the foldable iPhone could suffer a similar fate as its rival Galaxy Z TriFold, which went into early retirement after being sold at a loss after a delayed launch date? Time will tell.

2. Artemis II completes lunar fly-by
   NASA's Artemis II mission is on its way back home after a dramatic lunar fly-by yesterday, where they lost contact with the Earth, as expected, for 40 minutes as they travelled behind the Moon. The Orion spacecraft broke the record for human travel on Monday, beating a record of 248,655 miles (400,000 km) held since 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission. The astronauts managed to take stunning images of the far side of the moon as they made the fly-by, with more photos to come after returning to Earth. The crew now face several quieter days of checks and experiments before a fiery plunge through the Earth's atmosphere at nearly 25,000mph (40233.6 km/hour) and parachuting into the Pacific Ocean. Good luck and godspeed. First photo from the far side of the moon:

3. Music giant Universal offered USD64 bil takeover
   Universal Music Group has received a takeover offer estimated to be worth USD64.3 bil (RM259.19 bil) from US investment company Pershing Square, in a merger that would see the new company listed in the US. Universal represents a huge list of artists, including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kendrick Lamar, and also runs Abbey Road studios and owns labels such as EMI and Island Records. Pershing Square, which already owns a stake in Universal, also has holdings in Google, Meta and Amazon, as well as Restaurant Brands International, which includes Burger King. CEO Bill Ackman said that Universal’s stock price had "languished" due to issues unrelated to the performance of its music business, which could all be "addressed with this transaction".

5. FOR YOUR EYES 📺

1. How to protect rhinoceros? Give them radiation, make them go nuclear. Meet Rhisotope Project - developed in South Africa with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

2. First-ever evidence of marine mammals engaging in midwifery.

3. Why does Siamese cats’ fur colour change as they grow up? Thanks to the Himalayan genes that cause temperature-reactive albinism. Meaning, its fur colour changes according to body temperature.