From Micropolis to New York - A Remarkable Journey

[scroobal]

This is a remarkable story of a young Crescent School girl, the eldest daughter of a retired businessman who went on to run one of the most successful sovereign funds, achieving an impressive 18% annualised return and doubling its value since she took the helm of the fund in 2002.

This is a story of perseverance, resilience and single-mindedness to achieve, to be better than anyone, to reach for the skies and go where no man has gone before.

The formative begins in 1976, when this young local engineering graduate with first class honours joins the Ministry of Defence and within 6 years becomes the Deputy Director of Defence Science Organisation. In 1985 in the same year of her marriage she is receives the prestigious Public Administration Silver medal. In 1987 she leaves the civil service to taste the tough world of the private sector. She joins Singapore Technologies and goes on to climb the corporate ladder on pure grit and merit.

In March 1996, Singapore Technologies purchases Micropolis an American Hard Drive maker despite HP exiting the market known months earlier for its tight margins and Micropolis failing to make a profit for the last 3 years. 19 months later, liquidators PWC are called in with 1,300 losing their jobs in Singapore. Then Minister of Finance Richard Hu reveals in Parliament that the total loss is $630M (not $340M as widely reported). In later years, former cabinet Minister and the Chairman of Temasek S Dhanabalan hailed her courageous act of stemming the losses by exiting the business.

What is little known is that within days of the purchase, Al Shugart, the owner of Seagate, the largest private employer after Singapore Airlines with 18,000 employees complains to the Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that Government of Singapore is now directly competing with his company. and that Mdm Ho is Deputy Chairman of EDB and thus privy to his company's investment plans thru EDB and in what appears to be a conflict of interest situation.

To date there has been no other Singaporean since independence that has achieved so much as Mdm Ho Ching. In March this year, Temasek opened its London Office and this week in New York, 17 years after recording the largest loss in Singapore's Corporate history, a record yet to he broken.

Then there is the story of Australian Kindegarten chain ABC Learning which was purchased for $427M in 2008. When ABC began to struggle with its share price sliding, Temasek increased its stake by another 12 million shares, 6 months later the company collapses and it then emerges that its registered office is in a Condominium. Then there is the story of UBS, then there is story of Global Landing, and then ................................

 

[palden]

Sinkaporeans, work harder and longer. Ok?

 

[Brightkid]

I faintly recalled someone mentioned an 'exceptional' family somewhere. Is this story related?

Extraordinary individual achievements no other can come close even if these people work till they drop!

 

[Satyr]

This is a remarkable story of a young Crescent School girl, the eldest daughter of a retired businessman who went on to run one of the most successful sovereign funds, achieving an impressive 18% annualised return and doubling its value since she took the helm of the fund in 2002.

This is a story of perseverance, resilience and single-mindedness to achieve, to be better than anyone, to reach for the skies and go where no man has gone before.

The formative begins in 1976, when this young local engineering graduate with first class honours joins the Ministry of Defence and within 6 years becomes the Deputy Director of Defence Science Organisation. In 1985 in the same year of her marriage she is receives the prestigious Public Administration Silver medal. In 1987 she leaves the civil service to taste the tough world of the private sector. She joins Singapore Technologies and goes on to climb the corporate ladder on pure grit and merit.

In March 1996, Singapore Technologies purchases Micropolis an American Hard Drive maker despite HP exiting the market known months earlier for its tight margins and Micropolis failing to make a profit for the last 3 years. 19 months later, liquidators PWC are called in with 1,300 losing their jobs in Singapore. Then Minister of Finance Richard Hu reveals in Parliament that the total loss is $630M (not $340M as widely reported). In later years, former cabinet Minister and the Chairman of Temasek S Dhanabalan hailed her courageous act of stemming the losses by exiting the business.

What is little known is that within days of the purchase, Al Shugart, the owner of Seagate, the largest private employer after Singapore Airlines with 18,000 employees complains to the Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that Government of Singapore is now directly competing with his company. and that Mdm Ho is Deputy Chairman of EDB and thus privy to his company's investment plans thru EDB and in what appears to be a conflict of interest situation.

To date there has been no other Singaporean since independence that has achieved so much as Mdm Ho Ching. In March this year, Temasek opened its London Office and this week in New York, 17 years after recording the largest loss in Singapore's Corporate history, a record yet to he broken.

Then there is the story of Australian Kindegarten chain ABC Learning which was purchased for $427M in 2008. When ABC began to struggle with its share price sliding, Temasek increased its stake by another 12 million shares, 6 months later the company collapses and it then emerges that its registered office is in a Condominium. Then there is the story of UBS, then there is story of Global Landing, and then ................................

I don't know why but a line from Hotel California keeps repeating -"'you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave". Hahahahahahaha ( ghoulish laughter ).

 

[kukubird58]

hahaha....same shits different days.....
despite being exposed as a serial bullshitter and story teller, scroobye still thinks he has the aura of of yesteryears....
when presented with overwhelming evidence like minister reply to question raised in parliament he can still insist that Singapore allows dual citizenship...
this is the type of moron who still thinks that the sun rises because the cockeral crows in the morning.....truly retarded.

 

[tanwahtiu]

Remarkable achievements without the liability.

A CEO that cannot be fired for poor performances where sacking the shit CEO is like asking the Highest State holder appointment holder PM to resign as well. One bed fit 2 VIPs.

This is a remarkable story of a young Crescent School girl, the eldest daughter of a retired businessman who went on to run one of the most successful sovereign funds, achieving an impressive 18% annualised return and doubling its value since she took the helm of the fund in 2002.

This is a story of perseverance, resilience and single-mindedness to achieve, to be better than anyone, to reach for the skies and go where no man has gone before.

The formative begins in 1976, when this young local engineering graduate with first class honours joins the Ministry of Defence and within 6 years becomes the Deputy Director of Defence Science Organisation. In 1985 in the same year of her marriage she is receives the prestigious Public Administration Silver medal. In 1987 she leaves the civil service to taste the tough world of the private sector. She joins Singapore Technologies and goes on to climb the corporate ladder on pure grit and merit.

In March 1996, Singapore Technologies purchases Micropolis an American Hard Drive maker despite HP exiting the market known months earlier for its tight margins and Micropolis failing to make a profit for the last 3 years. 19 months later, liquidators PWC are called in with 1,300 losing their jobs in Singapore. Then Minister of Finance Richard Hu reveals in Parliament that the total loss is $630M (not $340M as widely reported). In later years, former cabinet Minister and the Chairman of Temasek S Dhanabalan hailed her courageous act of stemming the losses by exiting the business.

What is little known is that within days of the purchase, Al Shugart, the owner of Seagate, the largest private employer after Singapore Airlines with 18,000 employees complains to the Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that Government of Singapore is now directly competing with his company. and that Mdm Ho is Deputy Chairman of EDB and thus privy to his company's investment plans thru EDB and in what appears to be a conflict of interest situation.

To date there has been no other Singaporean since independence that has achieved so much as Mdm Ho Ching. In March this year, Temasek opened its London Office and this week in New York, 17 years after recording the largest loss in Singapore's Corporate history, a record yet to he broken.

Then there is the story of Australian Kindegarten chain ABC Learning which was purchased for $427M in 2008. When ABC began to struggle with its share price sliding, Temasek increased its stake by another 12 million shares, 6 months later the company collapses and it then emerges that its registered office is in a Condominium. Then there is the story of UBS, then there is story of Global Landing, and then ................................

 

[halsey02]

I faintly recalled someone mentioned an 'exceptional' family somewhere. Is this story related?

Extraordinary individual achievements no other can come close even if these people work till they drop!

Does anyone have that quote from the "horses mouth" so to speak, in this case from Old Fart mouth, that praised his daughter-in-law? She must be some sort of Genius we never knew, right?...all we get is " BUY HIGH, SELL LOW"...maybe, we do not understand their LONG TERM INVESTMENT, like, buy LONG TERM, sell at GREAT LOSSES SHORT TERM?, maybe, we are not investing savvy enough, or we are so stupid to have these people around?, your choice?

 

[kukubird58]

hahaha...scroobye reminds me of a fucktard friend that i knew of....he only know how to complain of losses....
he is a typical cb kia chow kah....
everytime he loses money at the table, he kpkb.....
when he wins he kept quiet.....
knn at the end of the day.....he made more money than anyone of us....but made the most noise!!!!

 

[winnipegjets]

In a true democracy, the ruling party would have been forced to resign. Criminal charges laid on the main actors. Some would have been serving prison time now.

The Opposition should use this theme ...do you want to get to the bottom of how billions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been lost to bad investment? Only a non-PAP government can provide the answer.

 

[shittypore]

Than how you tink Pinky got to sit as PM, all in the Familee!

 

[batman1]

Her greatest achievement todate is to get hitched to pinky match-made by Phillip Yeo.All the rest BS.

 

[Leongsam]

A truly capable woman. Everyone makes mistakes. Even the legendary Steve Jobs made big blunders. However, in the overall scheme of things, Ho Ching has done her country proud.

 

[kingrant]

Truly a story of Journey To the West...involving monkeys enriched with peanuts..

This is a remarkable story of a young Crescent School girl, the eldest daughter of a retired businessman who went on to run one of the most successful sovereign funds, achieving an impressive 18% annualised return and doubling its value since she took the helm of the fund in 2002.

This is a story of perseverance, resilience and single-mindedness to achieve, to be better than anyone, to reach for the skies and go where no man has gone before.

The formative begins in 1976, when this young local engineering graduate with first class honours joins the Ministry of Defence and within 6 years becomes the Deputy Director of Defence Science Organisation. In 1985 in the same year of her marriage she is receives the prestigious Public Administration Silver medal. In 1987 she leaves the civil service to taste the tough world of the private sector. She joins Singapore Technologies and goes on to climb the corporate ladder on pure grit and merit.

In March 1996, Singapore Technologies purchases Micropolis an American Hard Drive maker despite HP exiting the market known months earlier for its tight margins and Micropolis failing to make a profit for the last 3 years. 19 months later, liquidators PWC are called in with 1,300 losing their jobs in Singapore. Then Minister of Finance Richard Hu reveals in Parliament that the total loss is $630M (not $340M as widely reported). In later years, former cabinet Minister and the Chairman of Temasek S Dhanabalan hailed her courageous act of stemming the losses by exiting the business.

What is little known is that within days of the purchase, Al Shugart, the owner of Seagate, the largest private employer after Singapore Airlines with 18,000 employees complains to the Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that Government of Singapore is now directly competing with his company. and that Mdm Ho is Deputy Chairman of EDB and thus privy to his company's investment plans thru EDB and in what appears to be a conflict of interest situation.

To date there has been no other Singaporean since independence that has achieved so much as Mdm Ho Ching. In March this year, Temasek opened its London Office and this week in New York, 17 years after recording the largest loss in Singapore's Corporate history, a record yet to he broken.

Then there is the story of Australian Kindegarten chain ABC Learning which was purchased for $427M in 2008. When ABC began to struggle with its share price sliding, Temasek increased its stake by another 12 million shares, 6 months later the company collapses and it then emerges that its registered office is in a Condominium. Then there is the story of UBS, then there is story of Global Landing, and then ................................

 

[GoldenDragon]

From Micropolis to NY to Mandai Crematorium

 

[frenchbriefs]

Ahahahahahahahhhaaha¡!!!!!!!!!

 

[halsey02]

Truly a story of Journey To the West...involving monkeys enriched with peanuts..

You forgot to add, GOLD PEANUTS & they left behind wooden donkeys , who gladly pay for that "Journey To The West"..

 

[scroobal]

If someone from academia or even someone steeped in the investment industry were to do an in-depth study of each of these cases, I am sure there would be some interesting insights. But somethings are taboo.

Micropolis was acquired when the industry was becoming too competitive, margins tight and some of the bigger players were either exiting or scaling up significantly to bring down cost and price to compete more aggressively. Micropolis stopped making profits 3 years before the purchase. It was also producing high end HDDs. So why did ST think they can do any better. Within months they realised that they made a mistake and switched to low end HDD and smaller capacity drives trying to compete with Seagate and WDD.

The Seagate saga was an astonishing piece of lack of situational awareness when Singapore and Singaporeans relied heavily on Seagate. Imagine the 2nd largest private sector employer who worked with Singaporeans and was well regarded and treated in such a shabby manner.. Interestingly within days, Al Shugart went to see Philip Yeo, Chairman of EDB and the man who brought Ho Ching and her husband together and then went to have lunch with LHL on this disturbing issue.

The lack of situational awareness was again displayed when Temasek acquired Shin Corporation in acrimonious circumstances. Realising the quicksand it was standing on, it repeated it noted sense of situational awareness when they hired the Thai General from the wrong side of the river to act as their royal intermediary. The very next day the Crown Prince made his feelings known.

 

[scroobal]

ST-Micropolis plans assault on WD, Seagate
Summary: Hewlett-Packard's (HP) recent departure from the hard disk drive business, taking a charge of $150m against third quarter 1996 revenues, might look like a big drop in competition in the storage business, but another vendor has stepped in to fill HP's shoes. After the acquisition of the failing disk drive maker Micropolis by Singapore Technologies (ST) last March, the privately-owned company has revealed its product strategy.

Martin Veitch
By Martin Veitch | July 19, 1996 -- 13:29 GMT (14:29 BST)

Hewlett-Packard's (HP) recent departure from the hard disk drive business, taking a charge of $150m against third quarter 1996 revenues, might look like a big drop in competition in the storage business, but another vendor has stepped in to fill HP's shoes. After the acquisition of the failing disk drive maker Micropolis by Singapore Technologies (ST) last March, the privately-owned company has revealed its product strategy.

No longer will the company aim for the top end - at the time of the buy-out, Micropolis had announced a 23Gb disk drive which has now been dropped in favour of a 9Gb model. Instead, it will concentrate on the mid-range and low-end workstation market, going for volume and market share.

Micropolis' road map includes three more drives in the Tomahawk range, two of which, 4.5Gb and 9.1Gb models, are UltraSCSI-3 compliant, due for launch next year, and feature firmware written in C++; this allows optimisation to be more swiftly applied, the firm claims. The other is a 2Gb Fast-SCSI-2 device which has just been launched.

This means it will be competing directly with the likes of Western Digital (WD) and Seagate, says ST's CEO Joe Chen, who welcomed HP's departure. The plan is to defeat WD through its relationships with OEMs at the high end of the market, and hit Seagate with a faster time to market and more competitive pricing.

Micropolis isn't carrying on with the manufacturing of all the components itself either. According to spokesman Jon Toor, as well as the abandonment of subsystem manufacture, Micropolis will focus on reliability. It was poor reliability that heavily depressed the drive sales of the original company.

Extra reliability in this case means buying in rather than building components where appropriate, Toor said. The company was spending millions of dollars on analysis tools.

ST's revenues were $2.3 billion in 1995, and the company is "government-linked" - in other words, the state has provided all the venture capital.

 

[scroobal]

IN MAY, a remark by Al Shugart about government-owned Singapore
Technologies' buyout of Micropolis Corp's disk drive business set off a
flurry of responses from government officials. Recalling the incident, Mr
Shugart
insists his comments were "blown totally out of proportion".
News reports quoted him as saying that the takeover had resulted in a
situation of "unfair competition", and that the development might affect the
group's future investment plans in Singapore. The fallout from the report
was considerable, with good reason: Seagate has invested over $850 million
in Singapore, and its 18,000 employees here make it the Republic's second
largest private-sector employer, after Singapore Airlines.

The underlying concern is one of business confidentiality: Singapore
Technologies MD Ho Ching is also deputy chairman of the Economic Development
Board, to which multinationals like Seagate periodically divulge their
business plans. In response, government officials have repeatedly said that
EDB's private sector directors do not have access to confidential corporate
information given to the statutory board.

Three months on, Mr Shugart says he remains uncomfortable with the Singapore
Technologies-Micropolis situation but he's trying hard to understand it.

"I was mainly concerned with the fact that our plans which we shared with
the EDB would get shared with Micropolis. I've got to give all my
information to the government, so they should not compete with me. (But)
that was just one point that I brought out in my being uncomfortable with
Singapore Technologies, one of many points. (The media) took that one point,
blew it out of proportion. And I feel badly about this because Philip (EDB
chairman Philip Yeo) is a very good friend of mine."

He agrees that the breach of confidentiality he worries about "is not going
to happen. A lot of people from EDB are not going to let that happen."

And he adds: "When I was here before, I wouldn't admit I didn't understand
it. I thought I understood it clearly. But South-east Asia is complicated,
it's complex. Singapore has its own unique set of complexities, it's a small
island of three million people, everything is different. I don't know all
those things."

Still, Mr Shugart has trouble dealing with the concept behind the Microsoft
deal: "Well, I don't think that Singapore Technologies should be in the disk
drive business. If Apple Computer buys a disk drive from Micropolis and
that's a disk drive that we didn't sell, we're competing with the Singapore
government. Or the other way around, I sell a disk drive to Apple Computer,
that's a disk drive that the Singapore government didn't sell. So, we're
competing with the Singapore government, really.

"It would be like in the United States, if the United States government all
of a sudden owned Seagate. I would imagine that Quantum or Western Digital
would be very unhappy about that.

"But then I'm willing to say I don't understand the relationship of
Micropolis to Singapore Technologies to the city state of Singapore. I don't
understand that relationship. I told Philip last night and the night before
last: 'Be patient with me. I am learning. Give me time to try to understand
it.' But I just am uncomfortable competing with a country.

"I had lunch with BG (Deputy Prime Minister BG Lee Hsien Loong). He's a
great guy, very smart. I told BG, 'I don't understand why you guys did the
Singapore Technologies thing. Everything else you've done, you've done
perfectly. How did you screw this up?'

"He said: 'Well, if it turns out that we screwed it up, we'll get rid of
it.' That's the level of conversation. We had a good conversation. It was
explained to me that there is a difference, there is a separation, and the
Singapore government is not involved. And this is the same kind of thing
that Philip expresses to me too. And I have to say that I am still
concerned, but I will admit that I don't understand it and I'll try to learn
more of it."

What's more important now is to get on with the job at hand. "Singapore is
the centre of our Asia-Pacific operations. This is the centre of our sales
for Asia-Pacific. This is where we do the majority of our final assembly,
final tests. This is kind of our Asia headquarters."

Seagate will continue to keep Singapore's operations viable, he says. "I
think we have been careful in the past, and we have to continue to make sure
that we have the right kind of work for Singapore so that we don't price
ourselves out of the market. We have to have more final-test kind of work.
For example, we promised . and we've done . there will be more research and
development in Singapore which we don't do in Malaysia nor in Thailand, at
this point anywhere (else). For that kind of work Singapore is not priced
out of the market. But we have to be very careful."

What about reports that Seagate will not increase investment in Singapore?
He clarifies: "All I've said is . and we're not in the process of making any
decisions now . when we make decisions in South-east Asia for doing other
things, I have to take into consideration the fact that Micropolis has some
ownership links with the Singapore government.

"Does that mean we're not going to do (other things here)? Of course not.
Singapore is too important to us."

 

[scroobal]

One of the common and recurrent criticism about Singapore Technologies over the years and it continues is that its R&D wing which is crucial for its business is totally tax payer funded and provides this private sector company an unfair advantage. If you peal the onion, its smarts does come from Defence Science Organisation and its test bed for nearly all its products is the SAF. What luck.

Its the same with Temasek. Over the years tax payers funded Government assets such as power stations, PSA, Changi Airport including all the govt run assets such as DBS, SIA, Singtel, all well run with proven business models were passed on / sold to Temasek Holdings. The transfers and sale are never transparent and actual valuation never revealed. Again like Singapore Technologies, we are talking about a fully loaded base with plenty of buffer.

So are we dealing with an individual who actually built a successful organisation or someone who though might not have been born with silver spoon but surely was given one.

In early 2013, Temasek adopted an interesting strapline that was not based on the Company performance but an individual. It began to repeat that on many occasions especially in prints, reports the portfolio performance since 2002 and did vintage comparison. 2002 is also the year that Ho Ching took over the helm of Temasek.

It shows that the interest of the CEO comes first and not the company. It fails to credit the pioneering leaders who built the core companies that feeds Temasek and Mdm Ho and her kids. Prior to 2002, the company had to operate conservatively. It had many restrictions which Temasek currently does not have. So we are not looking at just apples alone.

And lastly for this post and not for this topic and this thread, name me one company in Temasek that is well regarded after Ho Ching took over that we Singaporeans can readily identify with success. Some will argue that the comparison is not fair as it is an investment fund and not in the business of building companies from scratch. If that is the case, than why is she identified with a string of failing companies.