This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 14, 2025 - July 20, 2025

TWL Holdings Bhd’s (KL:TWL) executive chairman Datuk Tan Wei Lian is probably grinning broadly. His colleagues? Not so sure.

The affordable home builder last Friday announced that it had offered Wei Lian 192 million shares under the company’s Employee Share Option Scheme (ESOS), which is 74% of the total 258 million ESOS shares.

ESOS is a form of reward for the contributions made by employees, on top of their monthly salaries and annual bonuses. The four members of TWL’s ESOS committee consist of three independent non-executive directors, namely Low Boon Chin, S Nagaraju Sinniah and Rithauddin Hussein Jamalatiff Jamaluddin and managing director Tan Lee Chin, who is a sibling of Wei Lian.

TWL turned around in its financial year ended June 30, 2024 (FY2024) with a net profit of RM7.29 million after eight consecutive years of losses. Annual revenue nearly doubled to RM50.8 million from RM25.69 million in FY2023.

The momentum of recovery appears to be continuing into FY2025. For the nine-month period ended March 31, TWL’s net profit soared to RM12.36 million from RM6.62 million a year ago. Revenue swelled to RM79.5 million during the period from RM22.7 million previously.

It is noteworthy that Wei Lian has been in the company’s senior management for nearly 19 years. He joined TWL’s board in November 2006 as the managing director to assist the company in diversifying into property development. He was re-designated as the executive chairman eight years later in 2014. TWL bled red ink in most of the years he was on the board.

Is the ESOS a reward for Wei Lian’s leadership in steering TWL to profitability? Even so, the size of the offer raises eyebrows.

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