KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 20): Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Hussain, the newly appointed chairman of Lembaga Tabung Haji, is no stranger to the financial industry as he is widely known as the co-founder of the RHB Banking Group, the fourth largest, fully integrated financial services group in Malaysia.
It all started in 1983, when Abdul Rashid secured a broker’s licence and set up Rashid Hussain Securities Sdn Bhd. Under his stewardship, Rashid Hussain Securities became one of the leading stockbrokers in Malaysia, being the first in the country to do in-house research on Malaysian companies in 1985.
Later in 1996, Abdul Rashid acquired a 75% stake in Kwong Yik Bank Bhd, which was then merged with DCB Bank Bhd in 1997 to form RHB Bank Bhd, making it the country’s biggest-ever banking merger at that time.
In less than a decade, he built a financial services conglomerate comprising a stockbroking firm, a commercial bank, a finance company and a merchant bank.
The group's current core businesses are structured into five business pillars, namely Group Community Banking, Group Wholesale Banking, Group Shariah Business, Group International Business and Group Insurance.
However, Abdul Rashid no longer has any stake in his namesake banking group as he had to give up control when it ran into financial difficulties during the 1997/98 financial crisis.
At that time, he had a 23.7% interest in Rashid Hussain Bhd, which in turn controlled 55% of RHB Capital Bhd, which housed RHB Bank, RHB Sakura Merchant Bankers Bhd and RHB Securities.
Following a widely reported series of huge loans granted to politically connected companies such as Rekapacific Bhd, which was controlled by the son of former transport minister Tun Ling Liong Sik, and businesses related to Tan Sri Halim Saad, that went awry, Abdul Rashid later sold his remaining 17.3% stake in Rashid Hussain Bhd to Utama Banking Group (now defunct) in 2003, which in turn was sold to the Employees Provident Fund.
Prior to founding the financial services conglomerate, Abdul Rashid began his financial services career in 1971 with Strauss Turnbull in the UK and returned to Malaysia in 1975 to work in Bumiputra Merchant Bankers Bhd before setting up his own stockbroking firm.
Abdul Rashid was also chairman of Putrajaya Holdings Sdn Bhd from 1995 to 2000 and served as a board member and chairman of the executive committee of Khazanah Nasional Bhd from 1994 to 1998.
He is currently a member of the board of governors of the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Most recently, Abdul Rashid was appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as one of six members of the Tabung Haji Royal Commission of Inquiry set up in 2022 to review the fund’s operations in the 2014-2020 period. The report from the inquiry has already been presented to the King and the government of Malaysia, awaiting further actions.