He turned a bad debt into a $90 million food empire
Alex Chia became the reluctant owner of a coffee shop in Ubi when a loan he had given a friend turned bad. Making the best of a bad situation, he turned the coffee shop around and grew it into a food empire.
Wong Kim Hoh
Deputy Life Editor
JAN 30, 2022
Mr Alex Chia's motto in life can be summed up in three simple words.
"Hao hao huo," he says, using the Mandarin phrase which means to live life well.
It has nothing to do with the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the food you eat or the size of your properties, he says.
It's not living it up, but living it meaningfully.
"It means that when I wake up every day, I have a mission, something to do, and I enjoy doing it," he says simply.
For the 54-year-old, it means diligently running the SF Group and taking good care of his 800 employees.
The SF Group is Mr Chia's food and beverage empire comprising more than 70 coffee shops, restaurants and stalls all over Singapore. It owns 14 brands including coffee shop chain Food Loft, Western food chain Collin's, Saveur Thai restaurants and halal dining concept El Fuego. Last year, the company raked in more than $92 million in revenue.
Becoming an F&B tycoon was never his game plan. His journey in the industry started because of an episode which nearly ruined him financially but eventually turned out to be a blessing.
More than 20 years ago, a trusting and naive Mr Chia lent more than $100,000 of his hard-earned money to a friend. The borrower couldn't pay him back and offered him a 50 per cent share in a coffee shop he owned in Ubi.
It was a deal Mr Chia accepted with great reluctance.
The episode didn't end there. A couple of years later, he found the friend also owed rental arrears amounting to another $120,000 to landlord JTC.
"I wanted to kill him, and myself," he says, half in jest.
He took over the whole coffee shop and rebranded it Food Loft after he settled the rental dues and decided to make the most of a bad situation. And through sheer hard work, Mr Chia grew it to become the SF Group which now also has a presence in China, Cambodia and Indonesia.
In 2018, the group bagged two Enterprise 50 awards. Jointly organised by The Business Times and KPMG, the award recognises local and privately-held companies which have contributed to economic development in Singapore and abroad.
"Maybe it's sha ren you sha fu," he quips, using the Chinese aphorism which means fortune favours the foolish.
SF Group CEO Collin Ho (left) and Mr Alex Chia at the 2018 Enterprise 50 awards ceremony where the company bagged two awards. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ALEX CHIA
There is a reassuring calmness and quiet dignity about Mr Chia, a quality usually seen in people who have gone through hard times and learnt a thing or two from weathering storms.
He was born to a poor painter and his wife.
"My parents were super productive; they made a football team," quips the 10th of 11 children who grew up in a kampung in Paya Lebar.
Money was always tight.
"I'd never eaten a good complete apple as a kid. My mom would spend $1 for a big bag of spoilt apples so we'd always have to cut away the rotten bits," he recalls.
"If you ask me if my childhood was tough, I'd say no because we were young and didn't know better. It was a lot tougher for my parents. Can you imagine having to feed 11 children?"
When he was nine, his father had a close shave with death.
"I was playing football in the field near my house when my mom called me and said she had to send my father to the hospital," recalls Mr Chia.
The elder Chia had a serious stomach condition, and needed an operation.
"I remember we couldn't pay for the operation which cost a few hundred dollars but the doctor was very kind and told us not to worry. I thought: 'What would happen if something happened to my father? Everything came from him. If he was not around any more, how would we survive?," he says, tearing at the memory.
The episode affected him deeply. To this day, family and hard work are extremely important to him.
"Frankly, I may not be able to compete with other people when it comes to knowledge. But hard work? I can work 24/7. Even today, I work on public holidays and Sundays," he says with a laugh.
After completing his O levels at Guangyang Secondary, he worked for a while as a labourer on construction sites.
"My father was a painter so painting was very easy for me. I used to help him when I was still in school," he says.
With a grin, he says the first thing he did when he got his first pay cheque of $300 was to buy a big bar of Van Houten chocolate - a luxury he never enjoyed as a kid - and finished it all by himself.
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After completing his national service in 1987, he started working for his brother who was a sub-contractor.
"He did design and interiors and I was his site supervisor. I also helped with sales. I picked up a lot of renovation knowledge which has proved very useful even today each time I open a restaurant or coffee shop," he says.
His next stop was at his brother-in-law's company, which supplied equipment and parts to shipping companies.
"I pau ka liau," he says, using the Hokkien term for general dogsbody. "I did everything, even the accounts. My brother-in-law was a very smart and sharp businessman so I learnt a lot from him."
When he was 27, Mr Chia decided to strike out on his own. He dug into his savings, took a small loan from his father and started a small hardware shop, which also offered handyman services, in Tampines with a friend. CT Hardware did well, thanks to his easy-going nature and industry.
"I'd take on any job, even fixing the toilet. As long as it made money, I would go," he says.
He remembers once quoting a woman $20 to fix her leaking tap. Although he started at 10am, he didn't finish the job until 8 pm.
"The auntie kept saying she felt very bad and wanted to pay me more. But I told her I should be the one feeling bad because she couldn't cook dinner because of me. I told her: '$20 is $20. Even if you don't pay me, I wont be angry with you because it is my fault for underestimating the difficulty of the job.'"
Several years later, he started another business Eastech, specialising in interior design and renovation. His affability won him many customers who became friends. One of them, a coffee shop owner, asked for a loan one day.
Mr Chia agreed - without charging interest - and the man issued him a post-dated cheque. This happened a couple of times, with no incident.
"He was a nice guy who sometimes got me small handyman jobs when he had problems at his coffee shop. Maybe I was naive but I felt that we should help friends who face problems. I would want my friends to do the same for me if I had problems too, right?" he says.
As it turned out, his generosity upended his life and set it on a different trajectory in 2000.
Fortunately, the coffee shop in Block 3014B, Ubi Road 1 which was thrusted upon him and caused him so much anguish didn't turn out that bad after all.
It was profitable, and more importantly, it was a cash business where stallholders paid him in advance.
In fact, it had so much potential that Mr Chia decided to sell his hardware store and close his renovation business to concentrate on it a year later.
He started looking for other locations and expanded slowly but steadily. Today he has more than 20 Food Loft coffee shops.
Not too long ago, he shelled out $11.5 million to buy another one in Hougang. "But I'll never give up that first one in Ubi. It has a special place in my heart. It was where I started and it is still profitable after all these years."
Mr Chia selects his tenants carefully. Their food must be good, and they need to be trustworthy and have a track record.
Today, Mr Chia has more than 20 Food Loft coffee shops. ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
He's had tenants who literally disappear without a trace overnight, he says.
Along the way, he grew the business by diversifying into different cuisines and investing in some of his stallholders. One is Mr Collin Ho, 45, who started out renting a stall in one of Mr Chia's coffee shops in Geylang more than a decade ago.
"He was a very hardworking young man who attracted a good supper crowd but he was a one-man show. Who would want to join him as a hawker in a food stall? He also could not employ foreigners," he says.
"I parked my car across the road and observed him for a few consecutive nights. I then went home to my wife and said I'd better talk to him. If not, he would not be able to tahan and surrender," says the entrepreneur whose wife - a former property agent - helps him out in his business. The couple have three children, aged between 13 and 26.
Mr Chia told Mr Ho he would invest in his business and scale it up. More stalls started popping up in coffee shops before the first Collin's restaurant opened in King George's Avenue in 2015. Today, there are 13 restaurants across Singapore.
And Mr Ho? He's now the chief executive of the SF Group.
"He's a very hands-on CEO. In F&B, we cannot have a CEO who's always in the boardroom doing presentations or paperwork in his office. He runs the whole show."
Mr Chia readily acknowledges that Collin's slipped up during the Christmas period over delays for food orders and meal deliveries.
"It was a wake-up call. I told them they were too complacent and said they should not take the trust and support of customers for granted," he says.
The amiable man is always ready to throw his weight and support behind promising talents.
"I'm a slow learner so all my people are smarter than me. I hire people based not just on what I want, but also what they want and whether I have a platform for them," says Mr Chia who has also sponsored the education of some of his staff.
The Buddhist is also known for hiring elderly workers - he does not engage cleaning agencies - and giving medical benefits as stipulated by the Ministry of Manpower.
"Some find it difficult to walk. I just tell them: 'You don't need to walk, you sit there and clean tables.' Many of them need money but what skills do they have besides cleaning? Who wants them? When they go to other coffee shops, no matter how cheap they are, the owners will say 'sorry'," he says.
He laughs when asked what he thinks about when he looks back on his life. "I am not that kind of person. I will not regret what is done. There is no point wasting time. I just have to adjust myself to the situation and look ahead and be ready for the next problem."
Problems, he says, are a part of life.
"Confirmed got problem one in every stage of your life," he says in Singlish. "Every year, every business. Just learn and move on. And don't hate. It's a lot of negative energy. Because when you hate, you will never learn anything."
