He Sold The Business That Worked To Feed The One That Didn't

He sold the business that was working to save the one that wasn't.

There's a packet of Premier tissue in almost every Malaysian household I've ever been in.

Here's what I didn't know until recently:

The company that makes it produced nothing at all for four years.

Not slow. Not struggling. Nothing.

The man who built it milled rice in Kedah. Lee See Jin. The Middle East war took rice from RM38 to RM68 a hundred catties. That year he paid his staff bonuses of up to two to four years' salary.

Then he went to Taipei. He watched a factory buy waste paper at 8 sen a kilo. The same factory sold toilet paper at RM1.20 a kilo.

His words: "I didn't understand the business in detail but I was thinking of the big amount of profits!"

He registered Nibong Tebal Paper Mill in 1975. NTPM.

Eight months for a paper machine to ship from Taiwan. Six months for a Taiwanese technician to install it. The first rolls came out riddled with holes. Six more months of failed trials. Then the technician gave up and flew home.

Lee went at it with what he knew from rebuilding rice mills.

Six months or so later, the machine ran. NTPM's own timeline says end of 1979, at a capacity of five tonnes a day.

By then the money had gone.

The fullest account of this stretch is in Chinese, in a business profile published in 2011.

RM800,000 in. RM2.8 million of accumulated losses. Three and a half times his capital, burnt.

Back when he took over his first rice mill, several loan applications were refused. One reason: he was young.

By that account, he sold the rice mill.

The business that worked went out the door. The cash went into the mill that made holes.

Recycled paper carries printing ink. European de-inking machines cost about RM500,000. Lee read up on the principles, drew his own, had it built locally in stainless steel for RM50,000.

By his own account the company broke even in 1983 and turned its first profit in 1984. He had registered it in 1975.

Here's what stays with me:

Every instinct says cut the loser and back the winner. He did the reverse.

On a P&L, a business that's losing money and a business that hasn't started working look identical. They're nothing alike. For four years his mill had nothing to sell at all. And a machine that won't run is a problem you can put your hands on.

By 2020 NTPM had sixteen paper machines and was turning out 250 tonnes a day.

It doesn't end tidily. It lost money in FY2025 and again in FY2026. In April 2026 it agreed to sell its Vietnam arm. The expected book loss on that sale is about RM196 million. The 22.42% on NTPM's register belongs to a holding company owned by the Widjaja family's Asia Pulp & Paper.

Lee, given as 86 in the FY2025 annual report, still signs the Managing Director's statement himself.

What are you protecting because it's profitable, when the thing that actually matters is the one still losing?