BUANASENI

A DECADE OF MYCREATIVE
By Johan Ishak
20 April 2022

MYCREATIVE VENTURES (MyCreative) turns 10 on 20 April 2022. A decade has gone by without me realising it. I am Johan. I am employee No. MyC001, and MyCreative is my baby. I can still remember working alone in a small room at Prokhas (previously known as Danaharta Services Sdn Bhd, I think) at Bukit Damansara drafting the policies and standard operating procedures for the Company. It was the same room where Dato' Rahman Ahmad had incubated Ekuinas and the same room where many other founding CEOs had done the same for the likes of MRT Co, Dana Infra and many more.

The key catalyst to the birth of MyCreative is the lack of support the Malaysian banking industry has given to the Malaysian creative industry. Lest we forget that even Islam had spread via the pervasive use of creativity, the Holy Qur'an, for which, was regarded as an excellent book of Arabic poetic narration, not by the prophet (Muhammad p.b.u.h.), but by God Almighty s.w.t. himself; to tame the Arab Jahiliah.

So, the banks won't give loans to the creative practitioners. Hence, we created a quasi-bank (MyCreative), well, sort of, but with no obligations to adhere to any Bank Negara ruling as it is meant to drive an affirmative action to rectify and correct the market inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The risks for creative businesses were regarded to be too high causing a spastic allergic reaction to the local bankers. So, we had taken our own version of Zyrtec, that is, affirmative framework to address the risks.

Firstly, my first set of requests to the Ketua Setiausaha Perbendaharaan (KSP), Tan Sri Irwan Serigar, as well as to the first Chairman, Datuk Seri Farid Ridzuan, was a bouquet of exemptions that had given us a better path to do what we wanted to do, which includes, among others, Tax Exemption, GST Exemption, Bank Negara Exemption, Money Lending License Exemption, and Securities Comission Rules Exemption.

We then picked young professionals from Merchant Banks, Audit Firms, Legal Firms and a bunch of youngsters who were passionate to do impactful stuff for the creative industry. We only operated with a small group of 30 people that had serviced over 100 companies with a total loans receivable value of RM200 million by the time we reached 5 years old (just before I left the Company). These professionals were sent for training to learn about the macro and micro economics of creative industries in many countries cutting across sub-industries such as Filming, Broadcasting, Animation, Theatre, Performing Arts, Music, Fashion, Crafts, Literature, Visual arts, Creative Education, Tech for Creative and Culinary Art.

Each loan given to the creative practitioners were tailored to match the cash flow behaviours of the operations; unlike the conventional banks where their loan structure were rigid and not flexible to suit the creative operations' needs. We had reduced reliance on hard asset collaterals and had instead embraced intellectual properties as the asset group of choice to back our bets on those companies.

With a parliamentary mandate in the 2012 budget session, MyCreative had gone to market to fuel vehicles that had their tanks empty simply because no one dared to produce the necessary fuel. Today, many of those vehicles are rocketing high as prominent brand names in the industry. Some of them are: Fashion Valet, The Actors Studio, Lil' Critter, LOL Events, Melinda Looi, Jovian, Core Design Gallery, and many more.

Pre-Covid, we only had 2% Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) and much of the success is owed to how financing structures are shaped to complete cash flow cycles of those businesses that do not normally follow the behaviours of their counterparts in manufacturing, agriculture, electronics and the other industries whom the banks have better appetite to lend funds. It was (still is) probably easier to get a bank loan if you are a Nasi Lemak restaurant as compared to, say, an art gallery.

10 years later, the Company has grown to become a group that consists of 3 more subsidiaries, namely, R!UH, as a creative market platform, CENDANA, as a national arts policy and development body; and MyCreative Private Equity to explore equity financing rather than debt financing solutions to the creative industry.

If I am to ask, "What else should we do to keep the momentum up?"

My answer would be, "Dear Y.A.B Prime Minister (PM) and Y.B Finance Minister (MoF). Rome wasn't built in one day. We cannot make a difference if we do not support such affirmative action. We need to continue the support. We need to allocate fair portion of the national budget to the industry and it needs to be consistent and with a fair runway just like how South Korea had pushed through their KOCCA to put their creative offerings at the top of the list globally. Only then will the creative industry be able to address the unlevel playing field caused by the lack of trust and courage the conventional banking system has on the creative industry. We were an agricultural nation when we got our independence. Then we went through modernisation that had transformed us into a Neo-Industrial Country (NIC) during Tun Mahathir's time. Now, we must turn the page. Now we are talking about Orange Economy. We are talking about people's skills. We are talking about connecting the Right Brain to the Left Brain. We are talking about 'Fuelling the Kreativ Malaysia' (which is, by the way, the title of my book at MPH book stores, Kedai Fixi and Silverfish Book store). I believe that the creative industry will be a force to be reckon with. What used to be 1.24% contribution to the Malaysian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has now reached 1.8%. Although improved, but still lower relative to our neighbours such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Phillippines. We need your (PM & MoF) continued support. Just because the initiative was started by a different Government or Minister or Prime Minister previously, it does not give you the right to ignore the creative industry. If it is a good action, embrace and continue to adopt and support it. God willing, we (creative industry) will grow positively but only if an infant is given the breast milk that it critically needs. Yours sincerely. Johan Ishak."