United Plantations, a BMQ50 constituent, is a storied company.

Founded by the Danish entrepreneur Aage Westenholz in 1906, the company was established as a rubber plantation company.

In 1951, a young Danish engineer got a job at United Plantations.

His name was Børge Bek-Nielsen.

Malaya, as it was known back then, was under emergency rule.

This was a dangerous place to be, considering the Malayan communists were targeting European estate managers.

But the young engineer persevered and made himself an indispensable member of the company.

Eventually, he became the Senior Executive Director and Chairman of the company.

But the New Economic Policy was now in effect. His playbook was an act of political genius.

He worked with then FIMA Executive Director, Dato’ Haji Basir bin Ismail. Basir took over as Chairman, and FIMA acquired a one-third (33.3%) stake in the company.

With Basir’s help, the company expanded its land bank further.

In the meantime, Bek-Nielsen had continued to accumulate shares from other non-Malaysian shareholders.

If you were a Dane in the 1980s, would you want to hold shares in some faraway third-world country?

Probably not.

By 1991, when FIMA needed cash, the block of shares was sold back to be under Danish control.

By the time he passed away in 2005 at the age of 80, control of United Plantations was firmly in his family’s hands.

United Plantations under the younger Danes, Carl and Martin, has continued to flourish.

The revenue CAGR from 2014 to 2025 is 8.53%.

The company is a generous dividend player and is one of the most efficient planters on Bursa Malaysia.

It is also a premium plantation stock, trading at 7 times P/B.

It took the older Bek-Nielsen decades to rise up from an assistant engineer to Chairman of the company.

And the younger Bek-Nielsens are bringing the company to new heights.