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Project King
Led by Haji Thasleem Mohamed Ibrahim, TMI-Nusantara Consultants is set to become a key player in the project consultancy market in the region. And with the economy on overdrive in India, expect to hear more from this spunky Malaysian company |
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CONSTRUCTION KING
Haji Thasleem Mohamed Ibrahim plans to enter India in a big way, with forays into hospitality, healthcare, biotech, infrastructure, and information technology |
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There was a time in his life when Haji Thasleem barely eked out a living. He had to wake up at 5 in the morning to deliver newspapers door to door. He slept at bus stations, slaughtered chickens, worked at a grocery store, studied under lights at railway platforms, and had to satisfy his stomach with no more than a loaf of bread and black coffee.
He had seen life’s complete turnaround. As a four year old in 1953, he’d moved with his family to Malaysia. His father ran a grocery retail business. It included a contract providing supplies and cooked food to several top schools and hospitals at Ipoh. There was a time when business flourished, and young Thasleem was dropped to school in a chauffer-driven car. But in 1963 his father’s business suffered when the then Indonesian President Sukarno launched his “crush Malaysia” campaign. Overnight raw material prices went up, and Thasleem’s father was incurring heavy losses as he was forced to supply large volumes at the contracted prices. The family sank into debt, banks closed down the family premises. The family was clearly not prepared for this setback, and decided to move back to India. Fourteen year old Thasleem, however, stayed back in Malaysia with his uncle to complete his studies. But soon his uncle fell ill, and Thasleem had to buy him a ticket to India and pay off the rental of the shop that his uncle ran. One day, he found himself with less than $ 20 in his pocket, and that’s when he was reduced to barely eking out a living, and sleeping at bus stations.
There was a time in his life when Haji Thasleem barely eked out a living. He had to wake up at 5 in the morning to deliver newspapers door to door
Soon he too joined his family in India with the intention of doing his pre-university studies. At this point in his life, there were quandaries. Thasleem wished to become a lawyer and a journalist, but his father wanted his son to be a doctor. He didn’t get the grades to get into medicine, but applied for a course in leather technology. When he returned to Malaysia years later, he discovered that he was the first Malaysian to have taken a formal training in the field. He got a job for RM 400 a month in September of 1973. Then an accident that broke his spine and fractured his ankle forced him out of the job. But in February 1974, he got a break with Johnson Paterson Footwear whose director David Brooks, a Britisher, found him extremely confident, even though he was at the time in crutches.
He worked hard, rose up the ranks, and in 1980 moved to Olivier as a regional manager of its Asia Pacific Region. A couple of years down the line he switched to the motorcycle manufacturing firm Ambadi Engineering. By 1985, he started out on his own. His desire to be an entrepreneur like his father and grandfather was now, finally, taking shape. He started out with a trading firm. But in the mid 1980s, the recession in Malaysia hit his business. He went to the U.K. and ended up teaming up with a friend to start a restaurant at Oxford Street. But this did not work out well either, and he returned.
In 1990, he got a job with High Point Rendel Consultants as a business development director, but on a salary of just RM 500 with an understanding that he would be given equity starting with the first project. He got his break in 1994, when he landed the project of providing facilities for the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia. Other projects followed and Thasleem never looked back.
Few people in India have heard of TMI-Nusantara Consultants. But this Malaysian project consultancy and management company is set to become a major player in the country. For starters, it is exploring the possibility of a $100-million investment in hospitality, technology and infrastructure projects in Hyderabad.
The $22-m turnover company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur plans to bring in its own equity as well as rope in funding partners both from Malaysia as well as joint venture with Indian firms. From delivering newspapers to delivering mega projects, the soft-spoken PIO has come a long way.
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