Ghosts of the Asian financial crisis live on amid heightened concern about China

(July 24): Twenty years ago, Steven Koh was working at the Jakarta office of BDNI Securities, part of the Gajah Tunggal group. Among the projects on his plate was the public listing of five companies, including a prawn farm that was being valued at some US$300 million.

If the prawn farm had listed, and the region’s economies continued booming, he figures he and his colleagues would have pocketed bonuses equivalent to five years of their salaries.

“Everyone was borrowing cheap US dollars. They thought the day of reckoning would never come,” Koh recalls of those heady times. However, in May 1997, hedge funds began shorting the Thai baht, sparking a contagion of selling in currency and stock markets across Southeast Asia.

---

Related Stories

• Will the woes of the Asian Financial Crisis resurface?
• Indonesia palm oil tycoon who built $12.6 bil empire dies

---