The late Tan Sri G Gnanalingam (The Edge filepic by Chu Juck Seng)

KUALA LUMPUR (July 11): Westports Holdings Bhd’s founder and executive chairman Tan Sri G Gnanalingam passed away on Tuesday (July 11) afternoon, the port operator announced.

“It is with deep sorrow that Westports announces the demise of our beloved executive chairman, Tan Sri Gnanalingam Gunanath Lingam, who passed away peacefully today, at the age of 78,” the group announced in a stock exchange filing.

“He touched our lives and the community with his compassion, generosity and kindness. His vision and stewardship of the company have built and transformed Westports and Port Klang into the preeminent gateway port in Malaysia and one of the transhipment hubs in Southeast Asia,” said Westports.

Gnanalingam won the concession to run a port terminal in 1994, part of the then government’s privatisation project, shocking many friends and business associates as the seaport business was alien to him.

He established the port two years later in 1996 in Pulau Indah with 10 cranes, and led it through leaps and bounds against all odds, including the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-1998.

Westports has since grown to be one of the largest companies on Bursa Malaysia with a market capitalisation of RM12.04 billion and a container handling capacity of over 13.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units.

While many of the current generation know him as an established port operator, the self-made billionaire first made his mark as the marketing director of a consumer-based multinational corporation in the 1970s, and was credited with helping to raise the money that enabled Malaysians to watch live, for the first time, World Cup football matches in 1982.

Gnanalingam went on to successfully commercialise the operations of Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM). His marketing consultancy, G-Team Consultants Sdn Bhd, helped make the 1989 Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur a profitable and successful event.

An earlier recognition of his success in port business came in 2000, when then Hong Kong richest man Li Ka-shing’s Hutchison Whampoa took a 30% stake in Westports, ahead of the latter’s initial public offering in 2013.

Currently, CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd still owns a 23.55% stake in Westports via South Port Investment Holdings Ltd.

In 2017, Gnanalingam was named The Edge Billion Ringgit Club Value Creator: Outstanding CEO of Malaysia.

According to Westports’ annual report, Gnanalingam attended the Royal Military College from 1960 until 1964, before obtaining his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Universiti Malaya in 1968. He is also an alumnus of the Harvard Business School in Boston, US, having attended the School’s Advanced Management Programme in 1983.

Gnanalingam started his career with the British American Tobacco group in 1968 as a sales representative, and was later promoted to be the group’s marketing director in 1980.

G-Team Consultants, established in 1988, acted as the corporate consultant for the marketing operations of RTM from 1988 to 2000.