Company Matters - Change of Company's name

In normal course of business, there will be some time that we need to change the company's name to suit the nature of business or for some other reasons. The change of name basically involved in 3 parties: the company (represented by Account Department), Company Secretary, and Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM). It may involved other authorities, such as Bank Negara Malaysia, if you are licensed under certain Company Acts.

Steps included the following in sequence:-

1. The company's representative contacted Company Secretary firm to do name search with SSM. This step is to ensure that the preferred company's name is available for reservation. If the preferred name is somewhat similar to an existing company's name, SSM will require a Letter of Consent from the existing company to allow the usage of similar name. Otherwise the reservation will not be succeeded.
2. Once the Company Secretary reserved the preferred name from SSM, the reservation will be valid for 3 months. Documents such as Board of Directors Resolution and so on will be prepared for the signature of Directors by the Company Secretary; and this is the stage where planning for such change shall be finalized, i.e. design of logo with new company name such as "XYZ Sdn Bhd (formerly known as ABC Sdn Bhd)". The Italic phrase is required to be included for 1 year w.e.f. the change. Stationery such as letterhead, name cards and envelopes with new logo (with the Italic phrase as well) to be printed for 1 year usage; notification lists for client, suppliers and bankers to be prepared beforehand; and etc.
3. After the documentation and planning in place (it can be planned before the reservation of name), the Company Secretary can then file in the change of company name application with SSM. Once the application is approved, SSM will provide the company a Form 13 to effect the change. Thus, all planned actions shall be acted in order to notify the stakeholders for such changes.

Although the above steps are quite simple, the planning stage is inevitable so that to ensure the smooth transition of such change. You may need to think about the website content to be modified, URL to be changed (or maybe reserve the old one as a secondary page or re-direct page), newspaper advertisement to be posted (when and where), and so on. It is a rather long process so do plan it earlier and expect the whole process to drain your resources for 3-6 months.

Most importantly, consider the cost-benefit-analysis whether the value of such change can cover the cost of the change: all printed materials with the phrase "formerly known as ABC Sdn Bhd" are required to be replaced by ONLY the new company name without the Italic phrase after 1 year. This means that the printer plates for all letterhead, name cards, and envelopes will need to be disposed off (unless you are using a digital printer). These costs maybe big enough to bog down the cashflow twice for the whole name change process.