Batu Kawan land sale… this time to Hewlett-Packard (HP)

This time it’s not another land sale to another developer who’s coming in with their integrated projects. It’s not related to IKEA too. If rumours in the electronics industry comes true, then HP would be buying a piece of 20.2 ha land in Batu Kawan for a new plant which will produce integrated circuit die for high speed inkjet printers. Total investment of the manufacturing plant is estimated at over RM1 billion. These days, new plants are no longer hiring huge numbers of manual workers by themselves and for this HP plant, it would be the same. It will be outsourced to the local small and medium enterprises and estimated to engage over 1,000 workers through this.
To those who did not know, HP has decided to split itself into two smaller but still huge companies. One would be on personal computers and printer while another would be on enterprise services. It said this would allow it to be more nimble in its operations and in fact more acquisitions may happen after this split. Generally, analysts in US are favourable of this split. I am not so favourable of small companies because they may not be able to face the larger companies in the same industry in the world but fyi, the two split companies would still have revenues of more than US$50 Billion, hardly a small organisation by any measure.
Ok, so now? Is it now? Let’s buy Batu Kawan now? You need to answer one fundamental question first, where would these new employers of this new plant be staying. If they are staying in Bayan Baru and HP provides them daily toll allowance, then it is highly unlikely for them to buy a new place, renovate and move. Oh yeah, buying a place plus renovation would take you nothing less than 6 months. Not to mention, a huge chunk of money and please remember, you have just started working in the new plant. Are you looking to do all this for a new job? Secondly, the rumour has yet to be confirmed and even if its confirmed, a typical construction to starting up day would be nothing less than 2-3 years. Hey, by then your main decision to buy may be IKEA and not this HP decision. Think about it.
written on 9 Oct 2014
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