My acquaintanceship with Jho Low [full name: Low Taek Jho] began at the beginning of 2013 after we met through our involvement in the music industry when Jho was a non-executive chairman of EMI music publishing and I was a co-founder and director of the Faith & Hope record label (which I still am).
At the time, EMI was one of the largest music publishers in the World and Jho – a Malaysian businessman and financier who made a $100 million plus investment in the Sony led consortium that acquired EMI for $2.2 billion the year earlier – was on the EMI board and high on my list of music executives that I felt I wanted and needed to know.
Even though Jho’s business card showed an address in a fancy high rise office block in Hong Kong, I wrongly assumed that he was permanently living and based in London. How wrong could I have been!
Jho’s Hong Kong office was based at #50 Connaught Road Central and its ostentatious entrance hall is incredibly impressive and must be at least four floors high. The block had a strange feeling of familiarity and I quickly realised that its external appearence reminded me architecturally of Essex House in New York [more about Essex House later].
As well as Jho’s business, at the time, #50 Connaught Road Central was also the regional home for the business jet company Gulfstream, the fabulous jewellery designer Cindy Chao, and the Manchester United football club who had chosen it for the location of their first Asia office following their IPO in 2012.
The reason I assumed Jho was permanently based in London was because he had studied in the sixth form at Harrow School in the late 1990’s, loved London, and had a very nice flat on Stratton Street. I really couldn’t imagine anyone having such a beautiful flat – in such an expensive part of London – and not living in it permanently.
The flat was above the HSBC and Langan’s Brasserie which we frequented. Langan’s is a lovely restaurant and fortunate to have amazing artwork inspired by the likes of David Hockney, Francis Bacon and Patrick Procktor because at one point its owners – Peter Langan and the actor Sir Michael Caine – were happy for artists to pay for meals in artwork.
By early 2013, Jho had already been involved with financing the film company Red Granite Pictures – which at the time was shooting ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ – and I wanted to get our music on the film, but failed. Over the next couple of years, I continued to try and get music on Red Granite films like ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ and ‘Daddy’s Home’, but also failed.
Jho and I pretty much hit it off immediately and it was partly due to the fact that we both felt like ‘outsiders’, even to the point where Penang (where Jho is from) and Morecambe (where my businesses are based and I now live) are both on the northwest coastlines of our respective countries and out on a limb geographically, commercially and culturally.
This ‘outsiders’ feeling was cemented on the first day I met Jho, when Penang and Morecambe were mentioned in a conversation about a ‘1Malaysia concert’ Jho was promoting that was to take place on a school field in Penang, in late April.
Jho explained that 1Malaysia was an initiative to promote unity in his country and – amongst lots of other artists – the American rapper ‘Busta Rhymes’ was going to perform and all the concertgoers had to pay was one Malaysian Ringgit [RM1] which was about 33 US cents at the time [just a third of a dollar].
I explained to Jho that in the early 1980’s, Busta had stayed in Morecambe for two extended summers – when he was only eleven and twelve years old – at his aunt Velma’s house and she had enrolled him into a local school.
At the time he was in Morecambe, Busta liked to be known as ‘TJ’ – as his real name is Trevor Smith Jr – and he and his younger brother were known as ‘TJ and Paul’ and they were getting work as a young breakdance crew in clubs, even though they were underage.
The next time I saw Jho was shortly after the Penang gig and he was buzzing because the concert was a great success with over 75,000 concertgoers attending. I was a little disappointed that Jho hadn’t asked Busta about his time in Morecambe and told him to go and listen to the remix of Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ that features Busta mentioning Morecambe in his rap.
Jho told me that he and Busta had got on well and were “hanging out more” in the US, although a few years later, it was reported somewhere that Jho had offended Busta in Ann Minceieli’s New York studio – over a joke that Jho was trying to have with Busta – which was clearly a bit of nonsense.
I very quickly realised that Jho and I were totally different social animals – with him liking to party hard at big lavish celebrity parties and me liking to have small quiet dinners with friends – so the old ‘Met Bar’ [now closed] at COMO Metropolitan was always a good compromise after dinner.
Jho and I undoubtedly shared a love of good food and beautiful restaurants. As well as Langan’s – and the restaurants in some of London’s finest hotels – Cipriani’s, Harry’s Bar, Quaglino’s and Cecconi’s were all frequented.
By summer of 2013, as an EMI board member, Jho was keen and excited to be involved with their artists and was finding out about the music industry from whoever and wherever he could. Although he was still relatively new to the music industry, Jho still knew surprisingly little about the mechanics of how music publishing actually worked.
Luckily though, this seemed to be accepted by senior EMI managers because they either did not know the situation, or just accepted that Jho was a de jure figurehead through shareholding and not a hands on catalogue guy.
At this time, Jho was spending more time in the US and the gossip in the music industry – which is nearly always wrong – was that he had an amazing penthouse flat in New York and an ‘estate’ in the Hollywood hills, and – for once – the gossip was correct!
Jho’s New York flat overlooked central park and it was so big, it covered half of the top of #1 central park west. His Los Angeles house on Oriole Drive was incredible when Jho had it, but a friend sent me a YouTube video showing the property abandoned a few years later. [watch]
A little interesting fact about #1423 Oriole Drive is that it had previously been owned by the tall guy in the white suit who played Mr Roarke in the American TV programme ‘Fantasy Island’, which I loved as a kid.
The main reason why Jho was in the US more in summer 2013 was because he was trying to buy – with others – the Park Lane Hotel New York at #36 Central Park South which also overlooked central park like his flat did.
Jho managed to get the ‘Park Lane Hotel New York’ deal over the line shortly after and I had one of those weird ‘small world’ moments, as I knew a girl who had a flat on the next block in Essex House at #160 Central Park South, which was pretty much between ‘Park Lane Hotel New York’ and Jho’s flat.
Essex House is the block that architecturally reminded me of Jho’s Hong Kong office block. It’s where David Bowie and Igor Stravinsky both lived when they were in New York, and sadly where the singer Donny Hathaway jumped to his death in 1979.
As crazy as Jho’s life was becoming, the following month he went down to Australia and decided to do one of the craziest things I’d ever heard. He rented jumbo jets so he could celebrate New Year in both Sydney Australia ‘AND’ Las Vegas on the same day! Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse, but I suppose that was the difference of Jho being an early 30’s party animal kind of guy, and me being a late 40’s slippers and hot chocolate kind of guy.
By this time, my music industry career had gone ok. The label I co-own had previously had a string of chart hits – including a 2008 UK number one off the back of Simon Cowell’s TV show ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ – and we’d signed the music that was used as the title music for the multi award winning British comedy TV series, ‘The Inbetweeners’.
We’d managed to get our music on Hollywood films like ‘Vanilla Sky’, ‘Serendipity’, the re-make of ‘Get Carter’; on the TV adverts for Volkswagen, Hugo Boss, and Kellogg’s, and my label co founder – Neil Claxton AKA Mint Royale – had finished a cool track called ‘Ring’ – featuring Willem Dafoe – that went on to be used for ESPN’s Super Bowl Promotion. [watch].
By late autumn / fall of 2014, I’d seen Jho a few times throughout the year and had gone through a difficult time personally, due to a long-term marriage break up in the March. In what seemed a relatively short period of time, Jho and I had found out a lot about one another’s upbringings, families and businesses.
I was enjoying his company, conversation and found him warm open and kind. He was supportive and genuinely pleased about the success our little independent label had previously had and seemed impressed that we’d managed to survive – in such a tough industry – after pretty much starting from nothing only fifteen years or so earlier.
At the time, Jho and I had been pretty good dealmakers and middlemen in our respective businesses – obviously, he was in a different league to me in terms of the size and volume of deals that he was doing – and there’s no doubt that he had a lot of plates spinning back then, with names like Wynton, Jynwel, Lilestone, Viceroy, Coastal, PetroSaudi and Myla all mentioned and talked about.
Jho always seemed to have a great team of loyal staff around him and although I can’t remember all their names, his brother Szen, along with Catherine, Susan, Eric, Diane, Li, Riza, Debra and Jesselynn – who I believe he married and now has children with – were around or mentioned.
As well as investments in Red Granite and EMI, around the time, Jho was also trying to buy – with others – the Reebok business from the German company Adidas in a $2 billion deal; and had also been trying to buy – with others – a London hotel chain that included Claridge’s, the Savoy, the Berkeley, and the Connaught in another $1 billion deal.
Although these two deals didn’t come off for Jho, losing the hotels seemed more personal than business. The people who secured control of the hotel group were Sir Freddie and the late Sir David Barclay – known as the ‘Barclay Twins’ – who already owned The Ritz.
Jho was still keen to pursue the hotel chain and felt I could help him because the Barclay twins had previously owned a stake in ‘Monstermob’ – a mobile entertainment company that I’d been involved with a decade earlier – that had floated on a sub market of the London stock exchange in 2003.
I told Jho that I couldn’t help him as the financial arrangements about the Barclay twins’ stake in Monstermob had not been anything to do with me – as I’d just been the ringtone and music guy – and didn’t know the twins personally. Once Jho realised the twins were not going to sell, he quickly moved on to the next deal.
Things were really looking up for Jho and all his businesses. He’d either just bought – or was buying – an oil company called Coastal; and was looking to buy a swanky London office – which he eventually bought – in a beautiful grade two listed building, further down from his flat on Stratton Street, in the up market district of Mayfair.
The property was bought to home a fashion business Jho owned called Myla. He invited me to Myla’s fifteenth anniversary party – several weeks before the date – which was to be held at the new office in the autumn / fall of 2014. Although I went, Jho couldn’t be there as he needed to be at a posh black-tie engagement in New York.
If you don’t know Myla, it’s a luxury lingerie brand – that was partly made famous by the ‘pearl thong’ scene in the American rom-com TV series ‘Sex and the City’ – and it wasn’t my kind of party because having models walking around in just bras, knickers, and high heels is definitely not my kind of thing.
To make things worse, the PA system was distorting and after a few minutes, I took the ‘executive decision’ and went over and adjusted the gain to stop the distortion. [Just to be clear, the use of the term ‘executive decision’ is used as a saying and I didn’t have anything to do with Myla as a company]. I found the PA distortion situation all very strange because Myla must have spent tens of thousands of pounds on that party and to have the PA distorting just beggars belief.
So, me, ‘Billy no mates’, ended up talking about my little toddler grandson to a lovely pregnant lady and I had nice chat with a vivacious young lady – who was hanging around the DJ table all night – who was off to do some work at the MTV Awards a couple of weeks later (but I’m not exactly sure what she was going to do there).
The highlight of the Myla party [for me] was the appearance of a violinist acquaintance – who was there as a guest, not a performer – and her wonderful personality was like an oasis of calm in the surroundings of vanity, as most of the guests seemed to be there ‘to be noticed’ and ‘to out do’ one another.
Anyway, back to Jho. He was looking and acting like a legitimate and incredibly successful businessman and philanthropist at this time and was being written about positively in publications like ‘Forbes’ and ‘The New York Times’.
He was involved at board level with lots of businesses and – as well as EMI and Red Granite – I remember talk of lots of companies involved in the likes of real estate, hotels, resorts, retail, fashion, commodities, energy, infrastructure, and mining.
I certainly didn’t expect or suspect that Jho would ever be accused of any financial wrongdoings and still find it hard to believe that it’s alleged he was involved with something like the situation with 1Malaysia Development Berhad [1MDB].
Some of Jho’s acquaintances have come in for fierce and severe criticism with harsh accusations made since the situation with 1MDB. Some think his acquaintances were naive, others think his acquaintances must have known that “something was going on” and sadly, the latter sentiment still lingers today.
What needs to be remembered is back in 2015, Jho was flying high, literally. He had been dating the Australian model Miranda Kerr, flying around the world in his private jet, and floating around it on his three hundred feet mega yacht.
He was throwing plethoric lavish parties with A-list celebrities in attendance; rubbing shoulders with world leaders and royalty; doing deals with governments and international investment banks; living in the most amazing homes around the world; travelling around in luxury limousines and supercars; and buying artwork by the likes of Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and Warhol.
I feel incredibly sorry for the people of Malaysia because of the 1MDB situation. I still can’t comprehend what’s happened and – although I only knew Jho for around thirty months – I still find it hard to believe that he was the mastermind of a masterplan to deceive people.
I always come back to wanting to believe that Jho was a pawn in a complex plan – that started out with every good intention to boost investment in Malaysia – which went catastrophically wrong and wasn’t as much to do with Jho as some people now think.
My conversations with Jho were never just about business and the music and media industries; and I was always so impressed with how passionate he was about people, family and humanitarian issues.
Jho appeared to genuinely care about the problems facing the world; and things like climate change, children’s cancer treatment, world poverty, refugee crises, wildlife, and ocean conservation always seemed to be far more important to him than money.
I quickly realised that Jho had a heartfelt adoration for Barack and Michelle Obama and was always very open about his financial support of the Democratic party in the presidential elections in 2012 [which Mr Obama won]. Jho cherished a photo of him with the Obama’s that was taken at the White House a few weeks before I first met him.
In April 2023, Pras Michel [the Fugees rapper] was found guilty of some kind of political conspiracy; and from what I understand, there’s been talk of Jho paying $20 million towards things like the donation to the Democratic partys campaign in 2012; for Jho to have is friends at fundraising events; and something to do with a fee that Jho paid for the photo of Jho with the Obama’s.
I don’t understand the complexities of the US legal system, but the problem seems to be – something along the lines – that Pras donated the money for the political contribution on Jho’s behalf. Maybe there’s more to the case than that, but that’s how I understand it.
Since two PetroSaudi International executives were convicted in The Swiss Federal Criminal Court in August 2024, people have asked if I knew what Jho’s link was with PetroSaudi International.
I didn’t know much about Jho’s situation with PetroSaudi International. All I really know is that they were a company involved in the oil industry and before I met Jho, our former UK Prime Minister [Tony Blair] had a firm called ‘Tony Blair Associates’ which was contracted to them.
I also knew that PetroSaudi International had a world class Chairman in the highly respected businessman Rick Haythornthwaite who took up the post as the Chairman of NatWest Bank in January 2024 and had been a former Chairman of Mastercard, Centrica, Ocado and Network Rail.
In a case heard in the Malaysian High Court in February 2025, former non-executive chairman of 1MDB, Che Lodin [Tan Sri Che Lodin Wok Kamarudin] said that although Jho attended a 1MDB board meeting concerning a proposed joint venture, he wasn’t aware of any role Jho had played in influencing the decisions on joint ventures, investments, or bond issues.
Che Lodin also refuted claims that Jho had influenced the 1MDB board of directors and his testimony has yet again left me wondering whether Jho’s merely a pawn in what’s clearly become a very complexed legal and political scandal… but only Jho knows the full truth.
There’s been considerable work done by very diligent and highly respected journalists over the past few years in relation to Jho’s life. Books have been written, documentaries made, podcasts broadcast, and there’s even a $JHOLOW investigative meme coin that’s being used to crowdsource a crypto award scheme to gather information from the public to locate him.
Although there were rumours in the press of irregularity around Jho’s involvement in 1MDB in 2015, these rumours passed me by and it was not until the beginning of January 2016 that I was aware of the 1MDB situation, after an acquaintance – who had retired from the music industry – told me to “type Jho Low 1MDB in to google”.
Whatever Jho did or didn’t do in relation to 1MDB at the time, he looked like a very plausible and successful businessman. In January 2016, although I’d heard of ‘1Malaysia’ (due to the concert with Busta Rhymes), I hadn’t heard of 1MDB and wasn’t aware of a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
I last saw Jho in late 2014 and we were in touch by phone between then and the late summer of 2015. Since then, I’ve not seen him, I’ve not heard from him, and his old Hong Kong direct dial number [ending 2911] rings but is never answered.
Why this page has been published.
I’ve written this page so I can direct people to it if I’m asked about my acquaintanceship with Jho Low between 2013 and 2015. Although it’s been a long time since I last had contact with Jho, there’s been great intrigue, speculation, controversy and fallout around him (with some losing their liberty).
If Jho was as deeply involved with the 1MDB situation as some people suggest, I feel incredibly saddened, shocked, dismayed, and my heart goes out to those effected.
Other than the information on this page, I don’t have any further information to offer or add about Jho, and respectfully ask that people don’t contact me in relation to either Jho or 1MDB. Kindest regards, David Wood.