Sibu Tales : Timber Company Shares

In the 1960's every one wanted to be rich fast - not to join any pyramid scheme, but to put some hard cash into newly set up timber companies. Famous surnames then were the Lings, the Tings, the Dings and the Hiis. Their surname sold very well. And frugal housewives wished to invest. So did the single ladies attached to the school and mission.

A group of single ladies "tak goorung" or invested in some new timber companies and they were richly rewarded by the end of the first year. This created a huge drive to collect lots of investment for new timber companies, often the recruitment was by word of mouth, not by newspaper announcement.

Today the forest of Sarawak is still being logged. Prices are still good.

Here is a tale of a few relatives who wanted to jump on the bandwagon too but when dishonesty was discovered, there was a fall out and family unity was totally damaged over 1K or $1000.00.

A clever woman decided to collect some funds from her relatives. She asked for 1000 per share from the families if they wanted to invest.

Thus she collected 5K from 5 families. Unknown to the members of the family she would get a free share out of their contribution, as she was the head of the group and the Managing Director was some how related to her.

A 6th member of the family also wanted to invest, but she was told that there was no more share available. Actually the leader did not want that particular in law to be part of her game plan.

This ended in family which was divided by those who had timber shares and one sibling without. The unspoken enmity and heart break lasted more than half a century.