http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1761_2012-03-20.html
Ong Beng Seng
Ong Beng Seng (b. 1944, Sabah, Malaysia - ) is a Malaysian hotel and property tycoon based in Singapore. Ong and his Singaporean wife, Christina Ong were ranked seventh on Forbes magazine’s 2011 list of Singapore’s richest people with an estimated net worth of S$1.9 billion. He is managing director of public-listed Hotel Properties Limited (HPL), which is involved in hotel investment and management, property development and retail. Ong played a key role in bringing the Formula One (F1) race to Singapore and owns the rights to the Singapore Grand Prix.
Early life
Arriving in Singapore at the age of four with his family, Ong attended Anglo-Chinese School, where he was a champion sprinter and long jumper. He obtained a degree in insurance after studying in Britain, and worked in insurance underwriting and broking in Europe and Southeast Asia. In the late 1960s, Ong joined Motor & General Underwriters Investment Holdings. When Haw Par Securities took a substantial stake in the company, Ong was appointed to Haw Par’s board.
He married Christina Fu in 1972 and three years later joined Kuo International, an oil trading company owned by his father-in-law Peter Fu Yun Siak. At Kuo International, Ong’s sense of daring is said to have served him well, as he earned millions by accurately forecasting the ups and downs of oil prices. The capital earned during this period reputedly helped finance Ong’s later investments and property development.
Rise in the property, hotel and lifestyle sectors
In 1980, Hotel Properties was formed as a private limited company to purchase the Hilton hotel for S$72 million, with Fu as the majority shareholder and Ong as managing director. The incorporation of Hotel Properties in 1980 and its subsequent listing two years later marked the beginning of Ong’s move into the property, hotel, retail and lifestyle sectors. The company quickly acquired properties and hotels, especially those on prime plots in Orchard Road, and formed a joint venture with the Four Seasons chain of hotels in 1984. Globally, it also acquired hotels in cities like London, Montreal, Texas and Perth.
Ong was reportedly behind HPL's move to acquire two plots of land along Orchard Boulevard from tycoon Khoo Teck Puat for S$61.4 million in 1987, and the company was involved in three of the largest property deals the following year. By 1992, Hotel Properties controlled four hotels in the prime Orchard and Tanglin areas, and had built a number of luxury condominiums. Ong’s private companies, Savu Investments and Savu Properties, also developed commercial and office properties in the business district.
With a strategy geared towards attracting tourism spending, by the early 1990s Ong had also opened the Hot Gossip discotheque, Hard Rock Cafes in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, and franchises for Haagen-Daz ice cream in Singapore and Hong Kong. Ong also controlled Komoco Auto, which handled the distribution of Hyundai cars, and entered a partnership for the charter airline Region Air. In the financial services sector, Ong and Fu picked up a 49% stake in stockbroker J. Ballas. A less successful acquisition was that of the Brash’s musical equipment chain, which dragged down HPL’s earnings in Australia and was eventually sold.
Ong acquired a reputation for bold moves and a flamboyant style and while some derided him as a speculator, others noted an astute sense of business behind his moves. The Wall Street Journal in 1989 named Ong as one of 28 businessmen around the world who stood a “good chance of becoming the next generation to lead business into the 21st century”, and he also won The Business Times' Businessman of the Year award for 1991. A newspaper report in 1992 noted his formula for success as “connections, a brilliant sense of timing, and a sharp eye for business”. Despite Ong’s reputation for the high life, he remained publicity-shy, granting only a handful of media interviews.
Together with his wife, Ong began to make inroads into the fashion world in the 1990s. Christina Ong’s Club 21 chain took on the distribution of designer clothing labels such as Armani jeans in the United States and the United Kingdom, and held the rights for DKNY products. These added to their portfolio of franchises for over 40 top American and European brands. HPL also invested in Donna Karan Japan and opened DKNY stores across Asia. Ong’s reputation for connections with the rich and famous was also reinforced when HPL took a 20% stake in celebrity restaurant chain Planet Hollywood in 1994. In 2000, the couple bailed out troubled luxury brand Mulberry, taking a 41.7% stake before eventually taking control of the company. By 2011, the Mulberry Group's shares had become one of the world's best-performing retail stocks over the past decade, and the Ongs' 57% shareholding in the company made up nearly half of their total net worth.
In late 2011, Ong and his wife's shareholding in HPL stood at just under 24%. HPL has stakes in 19 hotels in eight countries and manages a number of these, as well as interests in residential and commercial properties and retail operations across Asia.
Corporate and crisis strategies
When the Asian financial crisis hit the region in 1998, Ong began a process of selling non-core assets including hotels in Australia, a stake in the Italian fashion label Bulgari, the Brash’s chain and his personal Gulfstream jet. HPL’s stock price fell, and rumours of financial troubles swirled as the group divested more than S$150 million of assets. It later emerged that the divestments, mostly in Europe, were part of Ong’s strategy to keep HPL cash-rich, thereby allowing it to acquire more assets ahead of a recovery in Asian economies. That became known as Ong’s “sell West, buy East” strategy. As a result, the company had to retrench around 200 employees from its retail operations. Ong also had to deal with malicious rumours about his health, prompting a rare media interview to dispel them.
Part of the funds from the group’s divestments went towards the building of a global chain of Hard Rock-themed hotels, beginning with Bali and Pattaya. On the corporate front, media reports speculated in 1999 that Ong was busy fending off a hostile takeover of HPL from Malaysian tycoon Quek Leng Chan, who took his stake in the company from about 7% to just under 20% in a year amid rumours of a joint takeover with his cousin, Singapore billionaire Kwek Leng Beng. Ong and the Fu family responded by taking their own holdings from around 20% to 43%, and were eventually able to retain control of the group. Besides shoring up his own shareholding, Ong reputedly increased his media presence, talked up HPL's prospects and thus its share price, making it more difficult for Quek to acquire shares in the company.
Ong was back in the headlines in 2002, when he partnered state investment company Temasek Holdings to launch a takeover bid for steelmaker NatSteel Limited. This sparked a high-profile battle for control of the company with a rival bidder, Indonesian tycoon Oei Hong Leong. That battle was won by Ong’s 98 Holdings, which took control of NatSteel in January 2003 by gaining 50.31% of the company on the last day of its general offer, making its S$770 million offer unconditional. Through his company Reef Investments, Ong has come to own over 80% of NatSteel.
Bringing F1 to Singapore
In 2007, Ong clinched the deal to bring the F1 race to Singapore after a year of negotiations, due in large part to his friendship with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. Ong had earlier proposed to build an F1 track at the Laguna Country Club in 1989, but this was rejected by the authorities. The cost of the race was borne by Ong’s company Singapore Grand Prix (which bears 40% of the estimated S$150 million annual cost of the event) , the Singapore Tourism Board, and a government tax on hotel room rentals during the event. The F1 race and its accompanying glamour events helped Ong top The Straits Times' Lifestyle Power List.
Family
Father: Ong Teik Bee
Siblings: Brothers Beng Lim (d. 1973), Beng Min and Beng Huat
Wife: Christina Ong (née Fu), who owns the luxury fashion chain Club 21 and franchise rights to a number of high fashion labels.
Children: Melissa Ong Cheng Sim and Jonathan Ong Cheng Hee
Author
Alvin Chua
Ong Beng Seng
Ong Beng Seng (b. 1944, Sabah, Malaysia - ) is a Malaysian hotel and property tycoon based in Singapore. Ong and his Singaporean wife, Christina Ong were ranked seventh on Forbes magazine’s 2011 list of Singapore’s richest people with an estimated net worth of S$1.9 billion. He is managing director of public-listed Hotel Properties Limited (HPL), which is involved in hotel investment and management, property development and retail. Ong played a key role in bringing the Formula One (F1) race to Singapore and owns the rights to the Singapore Grand Prix.
Early life
Arriving in Singapore at the age of four with his family, Ong attended Anglo-Chinese School, where he was a champion sprinter and long jumper. He obtained a degree in insurance after studying in Britain, and worked in insurance underwriting and broking in Europe and Southeast Asia. In the late 1960s, Ong joined Motor & General Underwriters Investment Holdings. When Haw Par Securities took a substantial stake in the company, Ong was appointed to Haw Par’s board.
He married Christina Fu in 1972 and three years later joined Kuo International, an oil trading company owned by his father-in-law Peter Fu Yun Siak. At Kuo International, Ong’s sense of daring is said to have served him well, as he earned millions by accurately forecasting the ups and downs of oil prices. The capital earned during this period reputedly helped finance Ong’s later investments and property development.
Rise in the property, hotel and lifestyle sectors
In 1980, Hotel Properties was formed as a private limited company to purchase the Hilton hotel for S$72 million, with Fu as the majority shareholder and Ong as managing director. The incorporation of Hotel Properties in 1980 and its subsequent listing two years later marked the beginning of Ong’s move into the property, hotel, retail and lifestyle sectors. The company quickly acquired properties and hotels, especially those on prime plots in Orchard Road, and formed a joint venture with the Four Seasons chain of hotels in 1984. Globally, it also acquired hotels in cities like London, Montreal, Texas and Perth.
Ong was reportedly behind HPL's move to acquire two plots of land along Orchard Boulevard from tycoon Khoo Teck Puat for S$61.4 million in 1987, and the company was involved in three of the largest property deals the following year. By 1992, Hotel Properties controlled four hotels in the prime Orchard and Tanglin areas, and had built a number of luxury condominiums. Ong’s private companies, Savu Investments and Savu Properties, also developed commercial and office properties in the business district.
With a strategy geared towards attracting tourism spending, by the early 1990s Ong had also opened the Hot Gossip discotheque, Hard Rock Cafes in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, and franchises for Haagen-Daz ice cream in Singapore and Hong Kong. Ong also controlled Komoco Auto, which handled the distribution of Hyundai cars, and entered a partnership for the charter airline Region Air. In the financial services sector, Ong and Fu picked up a 49% stake in stockbroker J. Ballas. A less successful acquisition was that of the Brash’s musical equipment chain, which dragged down HPL’s earnings in Australia and was eventually sold.
Ong acquired a reputation for bold moves and a flamboyant style and while some derided him as a speculator, others noted an astute sense of business behind his moves. The Wall Street Journal in 1989 named Ong as one of 28 businessmen around the world who stood a “good chance of becoming the next generation to lead business into the 21st century”, and he also won The Business Times' Businessman of the Year award for 1991. A newspaper report in 1992 noted his formula for success as “connections, a brilliant sense of timing, and a sharp eye for business”. Despite Ong’s reputation for the high life, he remained publicity-shy, granting only a handful of media interviews.
Together with his wife, Ong began to make inroads into the fashion world in the 1990s. Christina Ong’s Club 21 chain took on the distribution of designer clothing labels such as Armani jeans in the United States and the United Kingdom, and held the rights for DKNY products. These added to their portfolio of franchises for over 40 top American and European brands. HPL also invested in Donna Karan Japan and opened DKNY stores across Asia. Ong’s reputation for connections with the rich and famous was also reinforced when HPL took a 20% stake in celebrity restaurant chain Planet Hollywood in 1994. In 2000, the couple bailed out troubled luxury brand Mulberry, taking a 41.7% stake before eventually taking control of the company. By 2011, the Mulberry Group's shares had become one of the world's best-performing retail stocks over the past decade, and the Ongs' 57% shareholding in the company made up nearly half of their total net worth.
In late 2011, Ong and his wife's shareholding in HPL stood at just under 24%. HPL has stakes in 19 hotels in eight countries and manages a number of these, as well as interests in residential and commercial properties and retail operations across Asia.
Corporate and crisis strategies
When the Asian financial crisis hit the region in 1998, Ong began a process of selling non-core assets including hotels in Australia, a stake in the Italian fashion label Bulgari, the Brash’s chain and his personal Gulfstream jet. HPL’s stock price fell, and rumours of financial troubles swirled as the group divested more than S$150 million of assets. It later emerged that the divestments, mostly in Europe, were part of Ong’s strategy to keep HPL cash-rich, thereby allowing it to acquire more assets ahead of a recovery in Asian economies. That became known as Ong’s “sell West, buy East” strategy. As a result, the company had to retrench around 200 employees from its retail operations. Ong also had to deal with malicious rumours about his health, prompting a rare media interview to dispel them.
Part of the funds from the group’s divestments went towards the building of a global chain of Hard Rock-themed hotels, beginning with Bali and Pattaya. On the corporate front, media reports speculated in 1999 that Ong was busy fending off a hostile takeover of HPL from Malaysian tycoon Quek Leng Chan, who took his stake in the company from about 7% to just under 20% in a year amid rumours of a joint takeover with his cousin, Singapore billionaire Kwek Leng Beng. Ong and the Fu family responded by taking their own holdings from around 20% to 43%, and were eventually able to retain control of the group. Besides shoring up his own shareholding, Ong reputedly increased his media presence, talked up HPL's prospects and thus its share price, making it more difficult for Quek to acquire shares in the company.
Ong was back in the headlines in 2002, when he partnered state investment company Temasek Holdings to launch a takeover bid for steelmaker NatSteel Limited. This sparked a high-profile battle for control of the company with a rival bidder, Indonesian tycoon Oei Hong Leong. That battle was won by Ong’s 98 Holdings, which took control of NatSteel in January 2003 by gaining 50.31% of the company on the last day of its general offer, making its S$770 million offer unconditional. Through his company Reef Investments, Ong has come to own over 80% of NatSteel.
Bringing F1 to Singapore
In 2007, Ong clinched the deal to bring the F1 race to Singapore after a year of negotiations, due in large part to his friendship with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. Ong had earlier proposed to build an F1 track at the Laguna Country Club in 1989, but this was rejected by the authorities. The cost of the race was borne by Ong’s company Singapore Grand Prix (which bears 40% of the estimated S$150 million annual cost of the event) , the Singapore Tourism Board, and a government tax on hotel room rentals during the event. The F1 race and its accompanying glamour events helped Ong top The Straits Times' Lifestyle Power List.
Family
Father: Ong Teik Bee
Siblings: Brothers Beng Lim (d. 1973), Beng Min and Beng Huat
Wife: Christina Ong (née Fu), who owns the luxury fashion chain Club 21 and franchise rights to a number of high fashion labels.
Children: Melissa Ong Cheng Sim and Jonathan Ong Cheng Hee
Author
Alvin Chua
