Malaysia’s public pension fund KWAP said it is seeking to recover its 163.4-million-ringgit (approximately $40 million) investment in Indonesian aquaculture startup eFishery, even as a structured investor repayment plan is underway at the beleaguered aquatech startup.
The fund said it is pursuing legal and financial avenues to recover its investment in eFishery, where KWAP held a 2.51% minority stake. “KWAP is pursuing all available avenues to maximise the recovery of its investment while ensuring that accountability is upheld,” the fund said in a statement on Saturday.
KWAP said it was among several institutional investors affected by what it described as the deliberate manipulation and misrepresentation of eFishery’s financial reporting.
The statement comes days after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim addressed questions over KWAP’s investment in eFishery. According to Malaysian media reports citing the prime minister, the investment was made in July 2023 based on information available at the time, including financial statements audited by an international accredited audit firm.
KWAP and the investor consortium had also conducted independent due diligence before investing, he said.
He noted that KWAP invested alongside global investors including Temasek, SoftBank, 42XFund, and Northstar, all of which had carried out their own due diligence. He described the losses as stemming from a “well-planned fraud” involving manipulated financial statements.
KWAP said it has since tightened its private market investment framework. It has also conducted an internal review of its investment approval process, post-investment monitoring, and governance framework following the discovery of the irregularities.
“KWAP has strengthened its private market investment approach by diversifying its portfolio, investing alongside experienced fund managers and strategic partners, enhancing post-investment monitoring and increasing oversight of material developments within portfolio companies,” it said.
KWAP said the eFishery investment represented only a small portion of its overall portfolio. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the pension fund managed 195.26 billion ringgit (approximately $48 billion) in assets and generated 8.33 billion ringgit ($2.03 billion) in gross investment income.
The investment has also attracted political attention in Malaysia. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it will consider whether to open proceedings into KWAP’s investment in eFishery, although the matter is not yet on its current agenda, local media reports.
The eFishery scandal surfaced late last year after a whistleblower alleged the startup had inflated its revenue and profitability over several years. Subsequent investigations uncovered widespread accounting manipulation that significantly overstated the company’s financial performance, leading to multiple legal proceedings.
In April, the Bandung District Court sentenced eFishery co-founder and former CEO Gibran Huzaifah to nine years in prison on embezzlement and moneylaundering charges linked to the accounting fraud.
