Mahbob Abdullah

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Joy of working at head office

AT Wisma Sime Darby in Kuala Lumpur, Dr Ho Chai Yee, the development director, was leaving on promotion to lead the research department.

He had worked in rubber research for many years before joining Sime ...

From the window seat of a Fokker Friendship plane, the rocky peaks of Mount Kinabalu would come into view, bathed by the sun. – BERNAMAPIC

All’s well that ends well in Sabah

IT was a nice life for me in Sabah. But it was not going to last. Being in Kota Kinabalu, I was free to visit the estates owned by Sime Darby near Sandakan.

I could enjoy the view as I took the morning ...

Pix for representational purpose only - FREEPIK

Surprises come in threes

AFTER my leave was over, I arrived at my apartment in Kota Kinabalu to be greeted at the door by a pretty girl with fair skin and long glossy hair. Her lips were slightly wet.

“Who are you?”

“I am your servant ...

Setback in pursuit of Wisma Sime Darby

AS a planter, I had been asked to buy plantations, but this was the first time I was asked to buy a building.

Wisma Sime Darby was a structure soaring with a golden glow as you passed it at Jalan Raja Laut ...

Dealing with a change of occupation

PERHAPS one of the highlights of my career was when I was made a chief in a small village in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1986.

After that, a series of events brought me back down ...

Memory of acquaintance from Ghana

DURING my visit in 1985, I had met the management staff at the plantation in Ghana. The one I remember most was Al Doku.

He was the chief accountant, about 45 years old, working for the managing director, ...

A worker loading palm oil fruit bunches at an oil palm plantation. – REUTERSPIX

I had read the articles in the press to say that plantations seem to benefit very little from the recent budget. One could go on talking about it but it is better to think of the wonder crop and how much ...

Ghana has gold and the area was once called the Gold Coast. – REUTERSPIC

Ghana and the ‘spirit‘ of the estate

IN 1985, I was not looking forward to visiting Ghana, where Unilever had a plantation called Benso Oil Palm Plantations.

It was because the managing director was Bill Morrison, who used to work with me ...

One company is working hard to get a constant supply of water to the palms. It pumps water from a stream up the slopes and lets it run down the rows of palms. The pumps use solar power.

Need to raise palm oil yields

MANY have read the coverage of palm oil in the business press recently, and I want to deal with one aspect of it here, a point I have valued highly.

It is about the need to increase the yield of palm oil ...

The owners of land that have been more or less idle have done much better with the oil palm that they have planted.

Ups and downs of palm oil prices

RECENTLY, I was delighted to see a Bloomberg report on palm oil prices, now getting a premium to soya oil.

For many years palm oil could only sell at a discount. I could work out how much the plantations ...

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