After DRB-Hicom took over Proton in 2012, they had been losing billions every year.
Proton's problems became so serious that it threatened to bring down the entire extended DRB-Hicom group along with its 60,000 employees.
Another 60,000 people among Proton's suppliers were also at risk. At that time, their suppliers were complaining that they are not getting paid by Proton.
Tun Mahathir as Proton's advisor and later on as Chairman failed to halt the slide in Proton's fortunes.
You can see the seriousness of the problem in DRB-Hicom's share price over the past 5 years. Investors were very worried then pushing down the share price to 80sen in May 2017.
After Proton announced its JV and sale of 49% shares to Geely in May 2017, investor confidence returned.
DRB-Hicom's shares have since rebounded and is now 3 times higher closing at RM2.58 yesterday (26 Jan 2018) since the announcement.
A failed DRB-Hicom then would have been disastrous since the group is so diversified and has loans outstanding with many banks.
LSS.
