IOI Corporation Berhad commonly referred to as IOI, was incorporated on 31 October 1969 as Industrial Oxygen Incorporated Sdn Bhd. IOI is one of

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

's biggest conglomerates. It ventured into property development in 1984, followed by

oil palm ''Elaeis'' () is a genus of palms containing two species, called oil palms. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African oil palm '' Elaeis guineensis'' (the species name ''guineensis'' referring to its co ...

plantations and refineries in 1985. IOI was listed on the

Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE; ms, Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur) dates back to 1930 when the Singapore Stockbrokers' Association was set up as a formal organisation dealing in securities in Malaya. In 1937, it was re-registered as the Malayan S ...

(KLSE) and trading as MYX: 1961—now known as Bursa Malaysia—in 1980. The group was headed by

Lee Shin Cheng Lee Shin Cheng (3 June 19391 June 2019) was a Malaysian business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Lee Shin Cheng headed IOI Corporation Berhad, better known as IOI Group, as its executive chairman. IOI is a conglomerate managing oil p ...

, the executive chairman, until his death. Lee Yeow Chor is

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

. , IOI Group employed more than 30,000 persons from more than 25 countries. IOI Group's

fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ju ...

runs from 1 July YYYY to 30 June of the following year.

Core businesses

Palm oil plantations

Palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced fr ...

plantations are IOI's biggest income generator. As of 2015, about 67 percent of the conglomerate's profits came from its

plantations. The group controls 230,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It has 15 palm oil mills with a total milling capacity of 4.75 million tonnes of FFB (fresh fruit bunches) per year from its 90 estates throughout Malaysia and Indonesia. With oil yield of some six tonnes per hectare per year at its mature estates, IOI is the most efficient plantation company in the world. Malaysia's oil palm average yield for the last 20 years has been stagnant at four tonnes per hectare per year.

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, sin ...

stopped buying palm oil from IOI in 2012. The United Nations Environment Programme says palm oil production is the leading cause of deforestation, which is occurring at a rate of about two per cent per year. Indonesia is also the world's third-largest carbon emitter, largely as a result of

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then land conversion, converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban area, urban ...

and the burning of

peatlands A mire, peatland, or quagmire is a wetland area dominated by living peat-forming plants. Mires arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, due to water-logging and subsequent anoxia. All types o ...

Real estate

IOI develops real estate and makes property investments. Two resort hotels in Putrajaya, the Marriott Putrajaya Hotel and the

Palm Garden Hotel Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae ** List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

belong to the IOI Group. The property segment contributes around 18 per cent of the group's earnings
Mari Home Marketing
is the appointed real estate agency by IOI to market its properties in Malaysia market.

Oleochemicals and speciality fats

IOI is the largest vegetable oil-based

oleochemical Oleochemistry is the study of vegetable oils and animal oils and fats, and oleochemicals derived from these fats and oils. The resulting product can be called oleochemicals (from Latin: oleum "olive oil"). The major product of this industry is soap, ...

manufacturer in Asia—held under wholly owned entities IOI Oleochemical Industries Bhd and Pan Century Oleochemical Sdn Bhd with a combined capacity of over 750,000 tonnes per annum. In 2021, IOI was ranked 8th on the Global Top 30 Specialty Oil Companies list. These plants produce

fatty acid In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an unbranched chain of an even number of carbon atoms, ...

s and

ester In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an oxoacid (organic or inorganic) in which at least one hydroxyl group () is replaced by an alkoxy group (), as in the substitution reaction of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. Glycerides ...

glycerine Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

, soap noodles,

fatty alcohol Fatty alcohols (or long-chain alcohols) are usually high-molecular-weight, straight-chain primary alcohols, but can also range from as few as 4–6 carbons to as many as 22–26, derived from natural fats and oils. The precise chain length varie ...

s, and metallic strearates. These have various industrial applications in the production of food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, personal care, home care, industrial detergent-surfactants and lubricant products. IOI's speciality fats businesses are operated by IOI Loders Croklaan, with manufacturing facilities in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, North America, and in

(with a combined production capacity of more than a million tonnes per year). Loders Croklaan's customer base includes global food giants like

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy ...

, Nestle,

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...

and

Kraft The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arr ...

. Speciality fats are used in

pastries Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...

, confectionery,

snack foods A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snacks are p ...

, and ready-to-eat meals.

Refineries

IOI owns refineries in the US and the

.Forbes 2012
No. 4 Lee Shin Cheng IOI extended its activities to

in 2005. Its associate company in Indonesia is

Bumitama Gunajaya Agro Bumitama Gunajaya Agro is a palm oil company from South Jakarta, cultivating palm oil trees in Kalimantan. It is a member of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The company was founded in 1997. It is a subsidiary of Bumitama Agri Bumitama Agri L ...

. On 27 September 2016,

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth ...

blockaded the IOI refinery in the Netherlands in order to force IOI to adopt a more sustainable plantation policy.

Critics

Environmental and civil organizations have criticized IOI Group.

first documented the destruction of orangutan habitat and peatland forest in the 2008 report ''Burning up Borneo'', followed by a second report in 2015, ''Under Fire''. The company also faced allegations in 2014 from Finnish NGO Finnwatch of serious labour issues on its Malaysian plantations, including confiscating workers' passports, providing contracts in language workers could not understand, restricting freedom of association and paying salaries below the minimum wage. IOI is a co-founder of the

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable palm oil products through global standards and multistakeholder governance. The seat of the association is in ...

(RSPO) and has played an active role in shaping the scheme. The company has several of its estates in

certified as complying with RSPO standards. According to

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split wi ...

in March 2010, IOI Corporation failed to live up to its claims of green stewardship. For example: :*

Plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

development took place in forest lands without approval of the Ministry of Forestry in conflict with the Indonesian legislation :* Plantation development took place without approved

environmental impact assessment Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...

s :* Fraudulent statements were made :* Encroachment has taken place in forests and peatlands :* There is a significant increase in fire hot spots :* Corporate claim not to use peatland but to circumvent the issue it does not consider coastal or shallow peat as peatland. :* Corporate claim not to use "burning policy". According to the Fire Information for Management System (FIRMS), there was a significant increase in the number of hot spots after land clearing activity started in 2009. :* IOI's current land development activities may trigger significant land conflicts. After a complaint filed by AidEnvironment in April 2015, the RSPO certificates of the IOI Group are suspended as of 1 April 2016. Since then, many consumer companies like Unilever, Nestlé and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

have cancelled contracts with the company. IOI was reinstated in August 2016 by RSPO after it was judged to have fulfilled the group's demands to improve its environmental performance. In September 2016,

published a damning indictment of IOI entitled, ''A Deadly Trade-Off; IOI's Palm Oil Supply and its Human and Environmental Costs''.

References

External links

* {{FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI constituents 1969 establishments in Malaysia Conglomerate companies of Malaysia Agriculture companies of Malaysia Palm oil companies of Malaysia Palm oil companies of Indonesia Real estate in Malaysia Conglomerate companies established in 1969 Real estate companies established in 1969 Agriculture companies established in 1969 Malaysian companies established in 1969 Companies listed on Bursa Malaysia