The Borneo Post and the Lau Family: From Sibu’s Chinese Press to the KTS Timber, Plantation and Media Empire

1. The first point that must be clarified is that the founder of The Borneo Post and the founder of KTS Group were not the same person.

The central founder behind The Borneo Post was Datuk Lau Hui Siong. The newspaper's own historical account describes it as his “brainchild,” and the first issue appeared on 24 April 1978. The name “The Borneo Post” was proposed by his younger brother Datuk Robert Lau Hoi Chew, who later became a prominent Sarawak politician.

The founder and long-time central figure of KTS Group, which controls The Borneo Post today, was Lau Hui Siong's elder brother, Dato Sri Dr Lau Hui Kang. KTS-related materials, The Edge, and 2026 memorial coverage consistently describe Hui Kang as the group's founding managing director or founder. The most accurate interpretation is therefore: Hui Siong built the family's newspaper system; Hui Kang built its industrial conglomerate; around 2000, after the newspaper businesses encountered a severe financial crisis, the media assets were absorbed into the KTS structure led by the elder brother's side of the family.

This distinction is fundamental. Saying that “KTS founder Lau Hui Kang founded The Borneo Post” would conflate the historical roles of the two brothers.

2. The Lau family did not begin as an established wealthy dynasty; it became one of Sarawak's influential Foochow business families later.

The Edge describes the Lau and Tiong families as powerful Foochow business families from Sibu, with the Lau family's influence ultimately resting on KTS's timber, plantation, and media interests.

The family's early circumstances were, however, modest. An obituary for Robert Lau Hoi Chew states explicitly that he was born into a poor family, lost his mother at the age of three, and was then raised by his elder brothers Lau Hui Kang and Lau Hui Siong, together with their sister. This directly demonstrates that, at least during Robert's childhood in the 1940s, the family's original environment was not that of an established wealthy industrial family; poverty, mutual support among siblings, and early family responsibility were important elements.

The later KTS and See Hua/The Borneo Post systems should therefore be understood as part of the postwar rise of Foochow entrepreneurs in Sarawak through local trade, timber, and publishing, rather than simply as inherited second-generation wealth. Detailed information on the parents' names, their father's occupation, and a complete genealogy is limited in public sources / cannot currently be confirmed.

3. Lau Hui Siong was probably born around 1929, but his exact birth date and educational record are not consistently documented in reliable English-language public sources.

The Malaysian media-ownership study Watching the Watchdog 2.0, citing earlier newspaper-history research, states that Lau Hui Siong took over See Hua Daily News in 1955 at the age of 26, implying a birth year around 1928–1929.

Court records provide a finer distinction: in 1953, Lau Hui Siong had already purchased substantial shareholdings in companies involved in publishing See Hua Daily News and subsequently became its managing director, while media histories generally use 1955 as the year in which he “took over” the newspaper. These accounts are not necessarily contradictory; they can be read as a two-stage process—entry into the ownership structure in 1953, followed by effective takeover by 1955.

Detailed information on Hui Siong's schools, university attendance, or degree completion is limited in public sources / cannot currently be confirmed. What is clear is that his public career was defined by early involvement in newspaper ownership and management rather than by a widely documented university career.

4. Lau Hui Kang, probably born around 1922–1923, was the more important “capital organizer” in the creation of the family's industrial empire.

The Edge reported that Hui Kang died in 2006 at the age of 83, implying a birth year around 1922–1923. He became the founding managing director of KTS and remained the dominant business leader of the group for decades.

KTS history contains two dates that can easily cause confusion. The group's trading arm states that KTS “commenced business” in 1962, while its 60th-anniversary history traces its commercial roots to 1956, when it was involved in exporting Ramin sawn timber. The most reasonable interpretation is that 1956 marks the predecessor entrepreneurial activity, whereas 1962 represents the formal beginning of the KTS group era.

KTS anniversary material says early operations were led by Lau Hui Kang together with figures including Tiong Hua Sing and Ngu Ngiong Hieng. KTS therefore began not as today's diversified conglomerate, but as a small organization centered on timber trading.

5. The brothers eventually developed distinct but interconnected roles.

Lau Hui Siong's strength was in newspapers, publishing, local social networks, and multilingual media expansion. Starting from See Hua Daily News, he later developed The Borneo Post and controlled Utusan Borneo, giving the media system access to Chinese-, English-, and Malay-language audiences.

Lau Hui Kang's core competence was timber trading, corporate organization, capital accumulation, plantation expansion, and conglomerate management. The Edge identifies timber, plantation, and media as KTS's major areas while also noting interests in aquaculture, shipbuilding, food, and other industries.

Robert Lau Hoi Chew became the family member with the most visible political career. He went on to hold Sibu local-government leadership positions, serve as a Member of Parliament, and become a federal deputy minister. Academic research on Malaysian media ownership consequently notes that Hui Kang himself was not an active politician, but that members of the Lau family had substantial connections with the Sarawak United Peoples' Party (SUPP).

The family thus accumulated three complementary forms of resources: industrial capital, media capital, and political/local social networks. This does not by itself prove direct exchanges of favors among these spheres, but it helps explain the family's enduring position within Sarawak's local elite structure.

6. As family wealth increased, education and Chinese-community institutions became an increasingly important form of social capital.

Detailed public evidence on Hui Kang's own higher education is limited. What is much better documented is his later involvement in Chinese education in Sibu. A 2014 memorial account noted his role in organizations connected with Chinese independent schools and his assistance to Wong Nai Siong Secondary School; a 2026 memorial described him as an entrepreneur, educationist, and community leader.

This matters because the Lau family's local standing was not based solely on corporate profit. Schools, Chinese education, clan/community activities, and philanthropy became long-duration social assets. When second-generation leader Henry Lau reflected on his father in 2026, he again placed business integrity, social contribution, and Chinese education at the center of the family legacy.

Media Entrepreneurship, Assets, Networks, and Business Model

7. Lau Hui Siong's real entrepreneurial starting point was See Hua Daily News, not The Borneo Post.

See Hua Daily News first appeared in Sibu on 1 April 1952. Lau Hui Siong obtained control during the mid-1950s and developed it into one of Sibu's most important Chinese-language newspapers. Media research says it had become the best-selling Chinese newspaper in Sibu by the late 1950s.

Court records show that See Hua Realty was established in 1969 as a corporate holding structure for the newspaper and related businesses. The wider media system later encompassed See Hua Daily News, The Borneo Post, Utusan Borneo, and See Hua Weekly.

Hui Siong's strategy was therefore not to suddenly launch an English newspaper in 1978. It was a sequential expansion: gain control of a local Chinese newspaper → build a publishing and distribution organization → extend the existing news-production system into English and Malay markets.

8. The 1978 launch of The Borneo Post was the decisive step that transformed Hui Siong from a Chinese-press entrepreneur into a multilingual regional media proprietor.

The Borneo Post began publication on 24 April 1978, initially developing out of Sibu. It expanded to Kuching on 29 October 1979 and later into Miri, Sabah, Labuan, and Brunei in 1986. Its online portal was launched in 2007.

The newspaper's historical materials also describe it as one of the early East Malaysian English newspapers to use photocomposition and offset printing rather than traditional letterpress methods. This suggests that Hui Siong's competitive strategy involved not only adding titles but also modernizing production and regional distribution.

The Borneo Post has long positioned itself as one of the most widely circulated English dailies in Borneo/East Malaysia. As recently as 2025, one of its columns described it as the “widest circulation English daily in Borneo”; that is the newspaper's own characterization and should be distinguished from independently audited current circulation figures.

9. The most strategically valuable feature of the Lau media portfolio was its reach across three language markets.

Historically, the core combination consisted of See Hua Daily News for Chinese readers, The Borneo Post for English readers, and Utusan Borneo for Malay readers.

This gave the group access to very different communities and advertising markets across Sarawak and Sabah rather than tying it to a single-language audience. It also gave the Lau family something that timber concessions and plantations could not provide: continuous access to public debate, business networks, ethnic communities, political communication, and local opinion formation.

In 2017, The Edge listed media assets ultimately controlled by the Lau/KTS system including The Borneo Post, See Hua Daily News, Utusan Borneo, Oriental Daily News, and The Busy Weekly. The composition has since evolved with the decline of print.

10. KTS's most aggressive media expansion came in 2002, when it entered the Peninsular Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper market.

KTS launched Oriental Daily News in 2002. The Edge and academic media research place the initiative in the context of intense rivalry between the Lau/KTS and Tiong Hiew King/Rimbunan Hijau–Media Chinese International business-media networks.

The Tiong-linked media network had expanded its influence in the Peninsular Chinese press through interests involving Nanyang Press and other titles. KTS's move from Sarawak into the peninsula was therefore an attempt to challenge a much larger established media network.

It increased KTS's national media profile but did not overturn the existing market structure. The Edge reported in 2017 that MCIL still commanded more than 90% of the Peninsular Chinese newspaper readership market and more than 70% of advertising expenditure, leaving Oriental Daily in a difficult competitive position.

As the economics of print deteriorated, Oriental Daily shifted toward an electronic model. In 2023, KTS management said the group remained focused on maintaining three newspaper titles—See Hua, The Borneo Post, and Utusan Borneo.

11. The decisive reason The Borneo Post ultimately came under KTS control was not ordinary succession but a severe financial crisis.

This is one of the most important details omitted from simplified company histories.

Facts recorded in Malaysian court proceedings show that by around 2000, Lau Hui Siong's See Hua newspaper system was in serious financial distress. The court material records accumulated operating losses since 1990 of approximately RM35.494 million by September 2000, total liabilities after eliminating intercompany balances of roughly RM54.648 million, and financial-institution exposure of around RM32.74 million.

In response, Hui Siong approached his elder brother Hui Kang during 2000 for assistance. Negotiations involved KTS Group, KTS News, and Henry Lau, who was already moving into senior group management. A relevant agreement was concluded on 6 November 2000.

Media-ownership research therefore treats 2000 as the crucial transfer point: Hui Kang/KTS took over and rescued the See Hua media system, after which the newspapers became part of KTS Group.

The relationship between The Borneo Post and KTS thus did not exist naturally from the newspaper's founding in 1978; it emerged roughly 22 years later through an intra-family rescue and corporate restructuring.

12. The rescue also reveals an important feature of the Lau family: family relationships themselves functioned as a mechanism for capital allocation.

When Hui Siong's newspaper companies accumulated severe losses, the rescuing capital did not come from private equity, an international media company, or a foundation. It came from the industrial group built by his elder brother Hui Kang.

In effect, the balance sheet created by timber and industrial businesses became the financial backstop that allowed the media assets to survive.

This is why KTS should not be understood simply as “a timber company that owns newspapers.” It is better seen as a family-controlled multi-industry capital system in which asset-heavy or cash-generating businesses can coexist with media businesses that may have lower profitability but greater social influence. In 2023, Vincent Lau openly acknowledged that print media was no longer highly profitable while explaining why KTS still maintained See Hua partly for Chinese cultural and community reasons.

13. KTS's media properties are therefore both commercial assets and influence assets.

Commercially, The Borneo Post operates business, branded-content, and advertorial sections alongside print and digital publishing. KTS does not disclose title-by-title revenue, profit, advertising contribution, or digital monetization figures, so the detailed revenue mix is limited in public sources / cannot currently be confirmed.

In influence terms, ownership of English-, Chinese-, and Malay-language news platforms gives KTS persistent access to political, business, community, educational, advertising, and reader networks across Sarawak and Sabah.

Vincent Lau's 2023 comments are particularly revealing: the group's willingness to retain See Hua even as print economics deteriorate shows that the newspaper carries cultural, community-reputation, and public-influence value beyond its standalone financial returns.

14. The economic foundation of KTS remains timber, trading, and plantations rather than media.

KTS Trading, the group's main trading arm, states that since the group commenced business in 1962 it has handled exports of logs, sawn timber, plywood, and laminated wood, while also serving as distributor for numerous international products.

Its distribution relationships include products and brands associated with STIHL, Suzuki, Shell, and Atlas Copco. In 2026, Henry Lau specifically cited the group's decades-long relationships with STIHL, Suzuki, Shell, and other partners.

The group's trading network publicly lists operations in Sibu, Kuching, Miri, Bintulu, Kota Kinabalu, Tawau, Sandakan, Labuan, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Singapore, and other locations, showing how far it expanded beyond its Sibu origins.

15. A second major asset base is oil palm and plantation, with BLD Plantation Berhad serving as the most important publicly listed capital-market vehicle.

The Edge identifies the Lau family as ultimately controlling Bursa Malaysia-listed BLD Plantation Bhd, whose Executive Chairman today is Henry Lau Lee Kong.

BLD's official corporate profile states that it was incorporated in 2001 and listed on Bursa Malaysia's Main Market on 21 July 2003. Its subsidiaries span oil-palm cultivation, fresh-fruit-bunch processing, palm-oil refining, and kernel crushing.

Bintulu Lumber Development publicly reports approximately 22,000 hectares planted with oil palm, while Grand Mutual has roughly 3,500 hectares and benefits from proximity to BLD estates for logistics and operational efficiency.

The business model is therefore visibly vertically integrated: land and plantations → fresh fruit bunches → milling → refining and kernel crushing → domestic and export sales.

16. The forestry business has increasingly had to move from the old logging model toward certification, sustainable management, and planted forests.

KTS Plantation manages part of the Segaliud Lokan Forest Reserve in Sabah under a state licence. Its official site states that the forest management unit applies natural-forest-management principles and holds Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme-related certification as well as ISO 14001 environmental certification.

Strategically, this represents an important transition. KTS historically competed through timber resources, harvesting, and exports; today the competitive framework increasingly demands forest certification, traceability, planted forests, downstream processing, and environmental compliance.

When Henry Lau received an honorary doctorate in 2025, he was described in connection with sustainable-forestry initiatives and was also confirmed as having served as KTS Group Managing Director since 2000.

17. KTS's portfolio is substantially wider than “timber plus newspapers.”

The Edge has described additional KTS activities including plantations, prawn farming, shipbuilding, food, and glass sand, while public group materials show trading and distribution across industrial machinery, marine engines, energy-related products, and food.

Property-related businesses also exist within the wider corporate network, but because KTS Holdings remains a privately controlled group rather than a fully reporting listed parent, current consolidated assets, group revenue, family net worth, and business-segment profit contributions are limited in public sources / cannot currently be confirmed.

The distinction is important: evidence that the Lau family controls a major diversified group does not provide a sound basis for inventing a personal net-worth figure.

18. In capital-structure terms, KTS is very different from a company built by private equity, venture capital, or external institutional investors.

Historically, its core financing logic has been family capital + operating cash flow + bank financing + a listed subsidiary platform rather than outside venture funds. The 2000 media rescue is the clearest example: restructuring relied on KTS family corporate resources and negotiations around financial-institution liabilities rather than an outside media investor.

The listing of BLD Plantation added an interface with public equity markets, while the KTS parent structure remained private and family-controlled.

Long-term strategic relationships have instead been industrial and institutional: international brands such as STIHL, Suzuki, and Shell; Sarawak development and forestry institutions; and regional business associations.

19. KTS's distinctive business model can be summarized as: resource assets generate cash flow; trading expands channels; media accumulates influence; the family network allocates capital over the long term.

The first layer is timber and forestry, through which the business originally accumulated capital via wood production, processing, and export.

The second is plantations and palm oil, converting land and agricultural assets into recurring long-duration cash flow and extending downstream into processing and refining.

The third is trading and distribution, using a network spanning East Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, and Singapore to represent international brands and reduce dependence on timber cycles.

The fourth is media, which may not generate the highest return on capital but provides multilingual communication, local recognition, participation in public debate, and social-network value.

The fifth is family succession: retaining ownership and leadership over decades rather than repeatedly selling assets, thereby allowing control and capital to compound across generations.

Turning Points, Controversies, Achievements, and Present-Day Influence

20. Lau Hui Siong's greatest achievement was not merely founding a newspaper but building a rare multilingual regional media system in East Malaysia.

From See Hua to The Borneo Post and Utusan Borneo, he transformed a Chinese-language newspaper base in Sibu into a system serving Chinese-, English-, and Malay-language audiences.

The Borneo Post was particularly important because it moved the Lau family's media presence beyond the Chinese community into the wider English-language public sphere of Sarawak and Sabah. Expansion into Kuching, Miri, Sabah, Labuan, and Brunei converted the title from a Sibu newspaper into a regional Borneo brand.

That is Hui Siong's proper historical position: not primarily a celebrity journalist, but a media entrepreneur, proprietor, and platform builder.

21. Lau Hui Kang's greatest achievement was turning a timber venture into a diversified family enterprise capable of surviving generational succession.

From timber exports in the 1950s to KTS after 1962, Hui Kang remained managing director for decades. Henry Lau stated in 2026 that his father served as KTS Managing Director for 38 years, then became Executive Chairman and continued advising the group until his death.

His defining achievement was not a single famous product but an organization capable of holding timber, plantations, trading, media, and other businesses under one long-duration ownership structure.

After Hui Kang died in 2006, the group did not fragment. His sons Henry, Stephen, and Vincent continued in management, and The Edge was already identifying them as the operating generation of KTS by 2017.

For a family business, successfully moving from founder control to second-generation leadership while retaining industry and capital-market influence is itself one of its most important achievements.

22. The period from 1997 to 2000 was the most dangerous phase in the Lau family's media history.

Sin Chew Daily's expansion into Sarawak in 1997 sharply increased competitive pressure on See Hua. Media research also reports that See Hua was accused of favoring the opposition and of contributing to the electoral defeat of then Deputy Chief Minister Wong Soon Kai, after which the Sarawak government boycotted See Hua and its sister newspapers, deepening their financial difficulties.

An important nuance follows: controversy around Lau/KTS media cannot be reduced to the simplistic description “pro-government newspaper.” In that historical episode, See Hua was in fact subjected to pressure because it was perceived as too favorable to the opposition.

The financial rescue in 2000 then moved effective control of the media system away from Hui Siong's more independent newspaper structure and into Hui Kang's KTS industrial group.

23. The 2000 restructuring was also evidence of failure: the old See Hua business model could no longer independently absorb competition, political risk, and debt.

Accumulated operating losses of roughly RM35.5 million and liabilities exceeding RM54 million represented a structural crisis rather than a routine short-term cash-flow problem.

From this perspective, the KTS takeover/rescue was not simply “empire building”; it was also an intra-family asset-preservation operation. Given the financial position described in the court record, it is reasonable to infer that without KTS's balance-sheet capacity, the See Hua–Borneo Post system would have faced a materially greater risk of insolvency or loss of control.

The restructuring also became the subject of company/shareholder litigation, demonstrating that family rescue did not automatically eliminate corporate-governance disputes.

24. Placing a major newspaper and a major timber group under the same ownership creates a persistent structural issue: potential conflicts of interest.

KTS is a significant Sarawak timber group and simultaneously owns major local media including The Borneo Post. When reporting on Sarawak forestry, Mongabay has explicitly reminded readers that The Borneo Post is owned by KTS, which itself has logging interests.

That fact does not prove that KTS gives direct instructions on individual stories, nor does it justify claiming that individual journalists lack independence. But from a media-governance perspective, a newspaper is required to cover state forestry policy, oil-palm development, land rights, and timber corporations while its ultimate owner is itself a major participant in those industries. That is an inherent potential conflict.

A realistic assessment of The Borneo Post must therefore recognize both its genuine news-production role and its ownership structure.

25. The most persistent negative controversies surrounding the Lau/KTS system concern forestry, peatland development, Indigenous land rights, and sustainability rather than the newspaper itself.

Research on the political economy of Sarawak's forests frequently places KTS alongside Samling, Rimbunan Hijau, Shin Yang, Ta Ann, and WTK as the so-called “Big Six” timber groups.

In 2016, environmental groups Friends of the Orangutans and Sahabat Alam Malaysia protested against KTS-linked BLD Plantation, alleging peatland clearance for oil-palm development in Sarawak.

KTS/BLD publicly rejected aspects of such criticism, arguing that some reporting was one-sided and disputing external organizations' descriptions of its forestry, plantation, and Indigenous-rights record. The Borneo Post carried the counterargument.

The rigorous conclusion is therefore: KTS/BLD has faced substantial and recurring allegations from environmental and civil-society organizations, while the companies have disputed parts of those allegations. Individual projects must be evaluated separately; NGO allegations should not automatically be presented as judicially established violations.

26. In 2019, Mighty Earth also brought KTS into an international forest-certification dispute.

Mighty Earth announced that it filed a complaint with the Forest Stewardship Council against KTS Group, alleging continuing conduct incompatible with the FSC Policy for Association in relation to deforestation and human-rights concerns and calling for investigation.

A distinction is essential: a formal complaint proves that an organized challenge was made; it does not by itself establish that every allegation was ultimately upheld by a court or certification body.

At the same time, KTS Plantation currently emphasizes that some of its forest-management units are subject to MTCS and ISO 14001 certification, indicating that third-party forestry standards have become part of the group's current strategic response to sustainability requirements.

27. From an external ESG-disclosure perspective, KTS remains a relatively opaque private group.

The Zoological Society of London's SPOTT platform gave KTS Group's timber and pulp operations an overall transparency/ESG-disclosure score of 24.3% in its latest update of September 2025, with particularly weak governance disclosure.

SPOTT's October 2025 assessment of BLD Plantation produced a total score of 28.5%.

These scores primarily measure publicly disclosed policies, commitments, and verifiable practices. They should not be misrepresented as meaning that KTS's “actual environmental performance is only 24%.” The more defensible interpretation is that a large resource-based family group still provides relatively limited public ESG information.

28. The media business faces a different structural crisis: the decline of print economics.

Vincent Lau acknowledged publicly in 2023 that traditional print media was no longer a highly profitable business and that social and digital media were reshaping readership; Oriental Daily consequently moved away from print toward electronic distribution.

The Borneo Post now operates through its website, WhatsApp Channel, Telegram, Newswav, and social-media channels. Its real identity is therefore no longer simply that of “a daily newspaper,” but that of a regional digital news brand anchored in a legacy newspaper.

Its core competitive advantage, however, remains local reporting infrastructure in Sarawak, Sabah, and Borneo, rather than global scale.

29. The central second-generation figure controlling KTS today is Henry Lau Lee Kong.

The Edge identified Henry, Stephen Lau Lee Kiong, and Vincent Lau Lee Ming as the principal sons managing the group after Hui Kang, with Henry occupying the most central executive position.

Henry has served as KTS Group Managing Director since 2000 and is also Executive Chairman of listed BLD Plantation.

As of August 2026, he is also Chairman of the Sarawak Timber Association for the 2026–2027 term, his third term as chairman since first taking the position in 2022. STA's own current leadership page confirms Henry as chairman and continues to show KTS/Lau representation within the association's senior network.

This shows that the family's influence today extends beyond owning companies into industry coordination, policy discussion, sector representation, and institutional business networks.

30. Vincent Lau increasingly occupies the connecting space between family identity, community institutions, and media-cultural assets.

At the 2026 memorial for Hui Kang, Vincent—identified as one of Hui Kang's children and as Temenggong Dato Vincent Lau—spoke publicly about his father's family principles, service, and educational legacy.

In 2023, it was also Vincent who publicly explained why KTS continued to maintain See Hua despite the weakening profitability of print media.

Compared with Henry's more visible roles in group management, the listed plantation company, and the timber association, Vincent's public position is closer to that of senior group manager + family representative + connector of community, Chinese-education, and media-cultural assets.

31. The family's political relationships need to be described accurately—neither ignored nor exaggerated.

Lau Hui Kang himself was not known primarily as a politician; media-ownership research explicitly describes him as not active in politics while noting the family's long-standing links to SUPP.

The clearest example was his brother Robert Lau Hoi Chew, who held Sibu local leadership positions, represented Sibu in Parliament, and served as a federal Deputy Minister in the housing/local-government and transport portfolios.

The Lau family should therefore be understood as a local elite family possessing corporate, media, community, and political kinship networks, but available evidence does not justify automatically converting those relationships into claims of a hidden political-control mechanism.

32. Lau Hui Kang also developed a long-term relationship with Sarawak's state-led industrial-development model.

At the 2026 memorial, former senior Sarawak official Hamid Bugo recalled Hui Kang as one of the earliest businessmen to respond to government calls for rural oil-palm plantation development and described him as an early contributor to the state's plantation sector.

KTS's growth therefore cannot be understood solely as a story of free-market timber exports. It was also embedded in a wider Sarawak policy environment centered on forestry development, plantations, rural investment, and state-business cooperation.

This combination of government development policy and local family capital is an important context for understanding the rise of Sarawak's large timber conglomerates.

33. The Borneo Post remains part of KTS Group today; digital transformation has not changed the ownership logic.

A 2026 Borneo Post report on a university newsroom visit still explicitly described The Borneo Post as part of the KTS Group.

The website's current copyright entity is Borneo Post Online Sdn Bhd, and it continues to operate dedicated Sarawak, Sabah, national, business, sports, features, and opinion/column sections.

The media property created decades ago has therefore not been sold to a major national media conglomerate; it remains embedded inside the Lau family's industrial group.

Timeline and Overall Assessment

34. The key chronology can be compressed into one continuous sequence.

1952: See Hua Daily News begins publication in Sibu.

1953–1955: Lau Hui Siong progressively acquires substantial interests in the See Hua-related companies and, at around age 26, effectively takes over the newspaper.

1956: KTS later traces its commercial roots to the export of Ramin sawn timber.

1962: KTS begins its formal group-era operations under founding managing director Lau Hui Kang.

1969: See Hua Realty is established as a corporate structure holding newspaper and related assets.

24 April 1978: Lau Hui Siong launches The Borneo Post; Robert Lau Hoi Chew proposes its name.

1979: The Borneo Post expands to Kuching.

1986: Expansion reaches Miri, Sabah, Labuan, and Brunei.

1997: Sin Chew intensifies competition in Sarawak; See Hua, accused of being pro-opposition, faces a government boycott and mounting financial pressure.

2000: The See Hua system suffers severe losses and indebtedness; Hui Siong turns to Hui Kang/KTS, which intervenes in the restructuring and assumes control of the media system. Henry Lau also begins serving as KTS Managing Director.

2002: KTS launches Oriental Daily News to challenge the established Peninsular Chinese-media market.

2003: BLD Plantation lists on Bursa Malaysia's Main Market, providing the Lau/KTS system with a major public-capital-market vehicle.

2006: Lau Hui Kang dies from lymphoma, accelerating the transition to second-generation leadership.

2007: The Borneo Post launches its online portal.

2022: Henry Lau becomes Chairman of the Sarawak Timber Association for the first time and subsequently retains the role.

2023: KTS management publicly acknowledges the pressure on print profitability while reaffirming commitment to See Hua, The Borneo Post, and Utusan Borneo; Oriental Daily shifts toward digital distribution.

2025–2026: Henry's institutional position strengthens further—he continues to lead KTS, chairs BLD Plantation, and is re-elected STA Chairman for 2026–2027—while external ESG platforms continue to rate KTS/BLD relatively weakly on public disclosure.

35. In one sentence, Lau Hui Siong's position in the structure was that of the “media entrepreneur,” not the principal builder of the later KTS conglomerate.

His defining assets were not timber concessions or plantations but the See Hua–The Borneo Post–Utusan Borneo multilingual media system.

His real historical contribution was to change the Lau family's position in the local information environment: the family moved from business into ownership of platforms capable of shaping and participating in the public sphere.

Yet his media system encountered intense competition, political pressure, and a severe financial crisis by the end of the 1990s and eventually required rescue by his elder brother's KTS capital.

Hui Siong's story therefore combines entrepreneurial success with the vulnerability of an independently financed regional newspaper business.

36. In one sentence, Lau Hui Kang was the person who transformed the Lau family into a durable capital group.

Hui Kang built KTS on timber and trading, expanded into plantations, media, and other businesses, and ultimately provided the balance-sheet strength that absorbed his brother's distressed newspaper empire.

His core capability was not editorial content but capital allocation, organizational construction, industrial relationships, and institutionalizing the family business.

The structure governing The Borneo Post today is therefore better understood not simply as “The Borneo Post → Lau family,” but as:

Lau family → KTS family capital → timber / plantation / trading / listed BLD / media → The Borneo Post, See Hua, Utusan Borneo, and related brands.

37. The most revealing feature of the family is that media was not the original source of its greatest wealth, yet became one of the most publicly influential components of that wealth system.

KTS's financial foundation lies in resources and industrial assets; The Borneo Post itself is unlikely to be as economically important as timber, oil palm, and other asset-heavy operations. Vincent Lau's comments on declining print profitability reinforce the point that newspapers are not necessarily the group's highest-return assets.

But media provides something those assets cannot replicate: recognition, participation in local agenda-setting, communication across ethnic communities, corporate reputation, community relationships, and long-term cultural presence.

That helps explain why a timber-and-plantation group continues to retain newspaper assets even after digital platforms have damaged print economics.

38. The Lau family's position today is best defined as “Sarawak local capital elite + major resource-industry stakeholder + multilingual media owner,” rather than as a national-scale internet-media giant.

Henry Lau currently sits at three significant nodes—KTS, BLD Plantation, and the Sarawak Timber Association—while The Borneo Post, See Hua, and Utusan Borneo continue to provide the family's most visible media presence.

The family's strengths are the product of decades of accumulated local networks, industrial assets, experience in land and forest-related businesses, distribution channels, and durable media brands.

Its long-term risks are equally visible: structural decline in traditional print, tighter regulation of resource industries, recurring forestry and Indigenous-rights controversies, weak ESG disclosure, and the challenge of maintaining coherent ownership and professional management as the family moves into further generations.

39. Ultimately, The Borneo Post is not an isolated news asset; it is part of more than six decades of Lau-family capital evolution.

In the 1950s, Hui Siong built communications assets through a local Chinese newspaper while Hui Kang built industrial capital through timber. In the 1970s, the media system expanded into English. In the late 1990s, it was hit by competition and political risk. In 2000, the brothers' previously distinct business paths finally converged under financial pressure. Thereafter, the newspapers were preserved inside KTS's wider structure of timber, plantations, trading, and family capital.

That is the central historical logic connecting the Lau family to The Borneo Post:

Hui Siong created the media influence; Hui Kang built the capital machine capable of sustaining that influence; the second generation, led by figures such as Henry and Vincent, has continued to keep both under the same family-controlled structure.