Lelo Nxumalo

The complex interconnections that define modern society are readily visible in our Facebook or LinkedIn networks. But what about the corporate world? I recently began mapping the web of cross-shareholding among Malaysia's listed corporations. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), I visualized the ecosystem to identify key "communities" and power brokers. The goal? To see if a company's position in this web predicts its financial destiny. The State of Play (2015) Figure 1: Malaysia's Corporate Network in 2015 (Created via Gephi) The map above visualizes the network as of 2015. While I have excluded specific company names, the "super-nodes" (the largest circles) represent the most connected shareholders in the economy—primarily government-linked investment companies (GLICs), fund managers, and international asset managers. A Decade of Growing Complexity ...