Singapore Business Review (January - March 2020)

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FROM THE EDITOR About Us

Singapore Business Review welcomes the new year with 11 fresh investment ideas, hand-picked to guard and grow your portfolio in 2020. Check out the latest version of our annual list of investment ideas on page 26.

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In 2019, the transaction volume in the Singapore bond market grew 23.7%, amounting to a total issuance of $21.07b from 75 deals in 2019.

Investors have continued to pour funds into local bonds, but with a caveat—they are only choosing issuers with strong track records, leaving companies in weaker sectors to scramble for financing. Flip over to page 24 for more details.

Another batch of fresh faces made it to our annual list of Legal Luminaries Aged 40 and Under. They were chosen for their leadership position, the gravity of the cases they led, as well as the value of the transactions they advised on. Go over to page 36 to find out who made the cut.

This issue also covers our Hottest Startups 2019 Panel Briefing, as well as our awards programmes: SBR Management Excellence Awards, Made in Singapore and Designed in Singapore Awards, Asian Export Awards, Malaysia International Business Awards, and Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards. Check out pages 48-54.

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CONTENTS

FIRST 12 Appetite for land subsides after en bloc fever dissipates

13 Smaller unit sizes for higher prices 14 IPO market sees fewer deals but higher proceeds in 2019

16 Singapore lures overseas wealth

36

LEGAL INDUSTRY SURVEY SINGAPORE’S 20 LEGAL LUMINARIES AGED 40-AND-UNDER IN 2019

STARTUPS 18 COVE Novelship Zenyum

19 SEPPURE Ai Palette

24

FINANCIAL INSIGHT WIN SOME, LOSE SOME: INVESTORS STEER CLEAR OF WEAK CORPORATE BONDS AS DEFAULT

26

COVER STORY WHERE TO INVEST YOUR MONEY IN 2020

Child Health Imprints

RANKINGS 32 Insurance firms tap into big data for new products

34 Singapore becomes top choice for governing law

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

48

AWARDS COVERAGE FIND OUT WHO WON AT THIS YEAR’S SBR MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE AWARDS

52

AWARDS COVERAGE FIND OUT WHO WON AT THE FIRST MALAYSIA INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AWARDS AND TECHNOLOGY EXCELLENCE AWARDS

22 How spacetech is soaring in Singapore

EVENTS COVERAGE 44 Unveiling the best and worst of Singapore’s startup ecosystem

For the latest business news from Singapore visit the website

www.sbr.com.sg Published quarterly on the Second week of the Month by Charlton Media Group 101 Cecil St. #17-09 Tong Eng Building Singapore 069533

AWARDS COVERAGE 50 The region’s finest exporters celebrate at The Asian Export Awards

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News from sbr.com.sg Daily news from Singapore MOST READ

ECONOMY

Payment performance further weakened in Q4 2019 The payment performance of Singapore firms have continued to deteriorate in Q4 2019 from the previous quarter, according to the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau (SCCB). This marks the third consecutive quarter of decline.

Prompt payments accounted for less than half of total payment transactions whilst slow payments accounted for almost two-fifths of total payment transactions.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

UTILITIES

MAS receives 21 applicants from digital bank licence aspirants The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has received a total of 21 applications for digital bank licences, according to a news release. Two-thirds (14) were applications for digital wholesale bank (DWB) licences, whilst the remaining seven are for digital full bank (DFB) licences. Applications closed in December, with majority of applicants being consortiums, such as Grab and Singtel.

Another investor steps in to buy Hyflux’s debts for $1.8b Embattled water treatment firm Hyflux received another offer from Singapore-registered Aqua Munda, to buy a portion of its creditors’ debts amounting to about $1.8b, according to an SGX filing. This includes its 4.25% notes due 2018, whilst some are 4.6% and 4.2% notes due 2019, and other senior unsecured debts, contingent debts and/or trade and other debts.

Eligible creditors may tender its offer from 30 December to 10 January 2020.

Singapore investors take note – If it works in India, it will work in Southeast Asia

BY BEN LIM As the competition for top jobs intensifies, executives in Singapore need to focus on improving their digital and language skills. 70% of digital initiatives do not achieve their goals, and whilst there are many reasons for this, a common issue is the failure to take a holistic approach and create a truly digital culture at firms. Changing a company’s culture is always more effective when it is led from the top.

PropTech: Beyond the Classified Section

BY YVES LUETHI AND NELSON LAU Singapore has become something of a regional hub for the PropTech sector. Of the US$7.8b in investment channeled into PropTech from 2013-2017, a large proportion of that sum, about $4.8b, flowed to start-ups in Asia-Pacific, according to reports from Jones Lang Lasalle. In 2017 Savills estimated the value of all developed real estate in the world at US$217t, one third of which is readily investable at scale.

MOST READ COMMENTARY Investment theory deconstructed

BY RICHARD YEH Investing is a word that will bring up many different connotations, both good and bad. Many picture glamorous lifestyles associated with the rich and famous, who have the net worth to make their money work for them. We also picture unscrupulous financiers, trading stocks to make money for themselves, at the expense of everyone else. It’s no surprise why many people feel this way either - the current state of investing is one that is exclusive, expensive and complicated.

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SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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FIRST Normanton Park site, whilst Guocoland and Allgreen have low sell-through rates as of July-September 2019, at 12% and 13%, respectively.

Developers are land-banking through M&A to avoid the increased costs.

Appetite for land subsides after en bloc fever dissipates

A

fter developers had their fill of the land sold off during the en bloc fever in 2016-2018, only giants like UOL and City Developments were left in 2019 to replenish their land banks.

But even these big developers have slowed down, having acquired only one site each from the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme.

According to DBS Group Research, developers’ cautious approach towards land-banking will spill over into 2020.

“With the government continuing to maintain a fairly low supply in the first half 2020 GLS, the infusion of new supply is likely to be more moderate and over time in the hope of meeting the annual demand for private homes,” said analyst Derek Tan. The increase in Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) to 25% (vs 15% previously) and the additional 5% nonremittable ABSD have also increased the capital commitment and significantly increased the risks for developers looking to add to their land banks. “Whilst developers might apply for remission of the 25% ABSD, expectations of a slowdown in sales velocity in 2019 might make developers rethink their land12

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

banking strategy or even make them stop looking (especially for the larger sites) altogether,” Tan said.

Sizing up the land bank is also put aside as developers continue to clear their inventories on the books. Based on DBS Group Research’s estimates, amongst the listed developers, most have focused on clearing their inventory on the books and most have achieved close to 40%-50% sell-through rates.

The only exceptions include Kingsford with a 0% sell-through rate as its sales license was delayed because of the former Selected M&A deals in 2019

Source: DBS Group Research

Land banking by M&A Some developers are avoiding the increased costs for buying land, and are now looking to “land-bank” through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with other developers. In fact, over $17b worth of deals were made in 2019.

Notable deals include CapitaLand’s acquisition of Ascendas Group, which is expected to boost the latter’s asset recycling pipeline and AUM to become amongst the top 10 asset managers globally. The acquisition of the remaining stakes in Marina Centre Holdings by UOL/UIC will also allow the consortium to potentially extract value through selective redevelopment, tapping on the various government schemes to boost asset values through increased gross floor area (GFA) or residential developments.

In another deal, CDL completed the acquisition of Millennium & Copthorne PLC (M&C), which will infuse the group with much operational and financial flexibility. Tan noted that CDL Hospitality Trusts may bulk up in size as the pipeline of assets from M&C may be injected into the REIT over time.

Land banking is not the sole driver of M&As, as growth prospects have also dried up, noted Jefferies Singapore equity analyst Krishna Guha. “Asynchronous cycles of different geographies and property sub-sectors along with lower tenant concentration risk is likely to cushion distributions from idiosyncratic risks,” he said.

Mergers will provide the REITs with better odds to be included to indices,

FIRST which will improve their liquidity, diversify their share ownership and lower their capital costs. However, the stock market’s reaction to these mergers has been noted to be mixed, with the share prices for ESR-REIT and OUE Commercial REIT, which recently underwent deals, either inline or lagging behind the sector’s performance.

Tan said the number of mergers amongst developers and REITs could increase in 2020. “We believe that some of these opportunities could come from sponsors who after a year of active M&A, may look to lighten up their balance sheets or realize value from assets that have stabilised.”

Sponsors also remain active sources of assets. “Amongst the SREITs, we see the CapitaLand group of REITs to be most active in terms of potential recycling activities. The likes of Ascendas REIT (A-REIT), CapitaLand Mall Trust (CMT), CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT), and CapitaLand Retail China Trust (CRCT) may look to tap the sponsor for opportunities apart

Implied cost of capital is still conducive for S-REITs to continue pursuing acquisitions

Source: DBS Group Research

from pursuing third party opportunities.

We also see potential action from FCT, which may look to acquire the Sponsor’s stake in North Point City South Wing or PGIM fund. The Mapletree REITs are also expected to remain on an acquisition spree with Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) and Mapletree Industrial Trust (MINT) being the most active in terms of bulking up their portfolio,” Tan said.

In a report by Jefferies, its S-REIT index delivered c.19% return in 2019. The industrial and hospitality sector led with c.23% return, thanks to sector M&A and industrial REITs MINT and MLT. This was followed by c.21%

return in the retail sector, mainly from MCT and FCT’s acquisition of PGIM portfolio. On the other hand, office lagged with c.11% return due to the underperformance of SUN and KREIT. “In 2020, we are a bit more sector agnostic given the valuation. That said, we prefer data centres, business parks, hotels/serviced residences. We are neutral on office and warehouse whilst retail continues to be least preferred. We expect business park rents to grow 2%, logistics flat and flatted factories to decline 1%,” Jefferies stated in the report.

Overall, S-REITs is projected to be wellsupported from the continued chase for yield.

Smaller unit sizes for higher prices

F

the past two years, the average size of a housing unit has declined towards the 70 psm level (750 sqft) for new sales, whilst price tags for these units continue to grow, DBS Group Research has found. Pricing per sqft (psf) has been inching higher towards the $1,650 psf level against $1,530 psf in 2018.

DBS Group Research analyst Derek Tan said that this is a result of the hefty down payment requirement for investors, which forces buyers and investors to focus on total quantum affordability in their purchasing decisions.

Based on DBS Group Research’s analysis, a prospective Singaporean buyer will need to fork up at least 28% in cash and/or from their central provident

fund (CPF) for their first property purchase in the private market, given current additional buyer stamp duties (ABSD) and applicable mortgage limits.

“Assuming a 1,000 sqft EC worth $1.2m, a buyer would have to fork out close to $330,000 in cash.

This amount rises to close to $483,000 for a private property worth $1.75m (first home),” Tan added.

To shoulder increasing costs of purchasing a home, most prospective buyers are expected to sell their properties. “For an investor (2nd property or 3rd property purchase), the upfront cash portion increases to 70% to 83% of the value of the home, implying that the current property measures are restrictive for investors,” Tan said.

Source: DBS Group Research

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

13

FIRST applying new work passes.

Another company, Eagle Hospitality Trust, had its stock hit by numerous factors, including a disclosure of properties sold to the sponsors ahead of the IPO. The SGX raised queries on the talks of extensive repairs needed for its floating hotel Queen Mary.

REITs accounted for 98.1% of Singapore’s total IPO proceeds.

IPO market saw fewer deals but higher proceeds in 2019

S

ingapore was a small dot amidst a bleak global landscape for initial public offerings (IPO) in 2019, as total proceeds rose over fourfold to $3.13b from 2018’s $730m. The number of IPOs dipped to 11 from 15 in the previous year, according to PwC Singapore.

Four REITs continued to support the majority of IPO activity and contributed a whopping 98.1% ($3.07b) to the total proceeds raised during the year. To date, REITs have contributed 87% of total IPO funds raised over the past five years.

Three newly-listed REITs had portfolios comprising assets mainly located in the US: ARA US Hospitality Trust has 38 upscale hotels; Eagle Hospitality Trust has 18 hotels; and Prime US REIT focuses on office buildings in the country.

Majority of the new listings were winners in terms of performance. In terms of firstday closing performance, seven out of the 11 IPOs closed above IPO price whilst three went below, showing similar results to 2018.

According to PwC, these companies have reported positive earnings results despite the macroeconomic challenges.

TrickeStar Limited topped the spot for both first-day closing performance with 35% gains. Although its headquarters is in Kuala 14

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Lumpur, the key focus markets are in the US and Canada. “The main driving force of the share price’s increase can be a result of individual management share purchase from the market,” said Tham Tuck Seng, capital markets leader at PwC Singapore.

Reclaims Global rebounded from worst performer with a 36% loss on day one trading to a positive of 8% gains YTD 2019 on the Catalist Board. “Its key market is public sector construction projects in Singapore, eyeing for the growth in major infrastructure demand locally. The company has posted improved results than prior periods, supporting its share to higher prices,” Tham said.

The bourse also had its fair share of losers.

Alliance Healthcare Group Limited, with key business segments of providing healthcare solutions and General Practitioner clinics, saw its shares fall as low as 33%. PwC cited a probe from the Ministry of Manpower in November on a locum doctor in one of its clinics, who had the clinic suspended from

Delisting galore Singapore continued to take a hit from delistings after 24 companies were removed from the bourse. M1 grabbed the headlines after major shareholders privatised the company in a need to raise its competitiveness in the market. A majority shareholder also acquired the remaining shares of corporate secretarial services firm Boardroom Limited in view of greater control and management flexibility after the delisting.

With majority shareholders taking the helm in 2019’s delistings, SGX has revamped its rules to strengthen minority shareholder protection. Under the new ruling, higher premiums will be required for companies looking for voluntary delisting as the exit offer requires the appointed independent financial advisor to opine if the offer is fair and reasonable. Companies are also required to receive 75% approval for shares held by independent shareholders. “With the new ruling in place, we may expect a decreasing trend of delisting in the future,” Tham commented.

Competition tightens With a growing number of delistings, increasing Singapore’s competitiveness has become more urgent than ever as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand are also making efforts to attract companies. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEx) continues to attract companies with its perception on higher valuations and liquidity as compared to the SGX, with nine Singapore companies listing on the HKEx in 2019. However, of the nine Singapore companies, only two counters remained above IPO price.

The Thailand IPO market beat Singapore and dominated Southeast Asia with 27 listings, raising a total of approximately US$2.6b. The Stock Exchange of Thailand has also ramped up marketing efforts to

“With a growing number of delistings, increasing Singapore’s competitiveness has become more urgent than ever. ”

FIRST attract regional companies to raise funds via listing of REITs, tapping into the gap in investment alternatives for Thai investors whilst the central bank interest rates remain low. “This may pose as a threat to SGX in attracting foreign REITs considering to list in the region,” Tham said.

Industry strengths As Singapore gets surrounded by other competitive bourses, the SGX is still projected to dominate especially in the niche sectors of REITs and business trusts, as well as F&B and healthcare segments, in 2020.

However, even these industries showed mixed results.

The number of healthcare listings fell from four companies in 2018 to just one firm in 2019, Alliance HealthCare Group. However, this sector will remain a key segment on the SGX as listed companies have seen an average of 47 times price-to-earning ratio.

Apart from healthcare, F&B also remains a key focus industry. For instance, strong branding and overseas expansion helped Jumbo Group see a 50% increase in share price and Koufu Group gain 22%. “As Singapore F&B brands establish their status overseas and with the growth of Singapore food quality’s reputation, we expect more

Selected M&A deals in 2019

Source: PwC Singapore

reward companies with good corporate governance with incentives in the form of prioritised clearance for selected corporateaction submissions. It also partnered with NASDAQ and Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange to raise opportunities for companies, particularly those in the technology and healthcare sectors to fund their growth in Asia and globally. This will then allow companies to a dual listing or a simultaneous IPO on both exchanges.

F&B listings from 2020 and beyond,” Tham said.

However, F&B companies with mainly local presence, namely, RE&S Holdings, Kimly Limited and No Signboard, saw a decrease in share prices due to lower profits and increasing competition and costs.

The SGX has taken strides to maintain its competitiveness in the region through programmes, such as the SGX Fast Track programme which was launched to

Singapore SMEs and their Nearly half of Singapore SMEs are optimistic 2020 outlook andfeeling priorities forfor2020

23%

31 %

% 46 Positive

Negative

Neutral

23%

SMEs in the business services sector are

most optimistic

Those in the wholesale and retail sectors have the least positive

Continued slowdown in global demand

51 %

17 %

Increase their productivity

The strengthening of the Singapore dollar

43%

43%

Develop new sources of revenue

Reduce costs

outlook

Focus for 2020:

Expense management solutions

18%

The impact of ongoing US-China trade tensions

65% of SMEs are already using digital solutions 24%

How SMEs plan to respond to challenges

What are their top concerns?

Business outlook for 2020

24%

Customer relationship management solutions

59% want to become more sustainable Looking to improve sustainability by:

23%

Sales solutions

47 %

Using resources more efficiently

43%

Improving corporate governance

40 %

Using energy-efficient equipment and technology

Source: The UOB survey was conducted in late November 2019 by United Overseas Bank among 615 local SMEs with revenue less than S$100 million to understand how they plan to achieve their business objectives in 2020.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

15

FIRST INFOGRAPHIC

SINGAPORE BUSINESS LEADER SURVEY

Singapore lures overseas wealth

S

ingapore ranked 3rd on the list of the most favoured Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies for increase in cross-border investments over the next 12 months, according to PwC’s Asia Pacific Business Leaders Survey. It rose from the 9th spot in 2018.

Thirty-eight percent of the respondents chose Singapore, which trailed behind Vietnam and Australia at 44% and 39%, respectively. However, the Lion City outpaced Thailand (36%), Indonesia (36%), China (36%), Japan (34%) and the US (33%).

A majority of Singapore business leaders have become more confident about their firm’s revenue growth compared to last year, with 45% of respondents saying they are “somewhat confident”, compared to 40% in 2019.

However, PwC noted that these business leaders are still on the watch for certain challenges. For instance, the survey revealed that most respondents (42%) cited foreign labour employment as the biggest hindrance to cross-border movement of data, goods and services, followed by increased barriers on the flow of data and services itself (34%). Putting more barriers to investing in another market (24%), particularly constraints on foreign direct investments and M&A, is also a challenge respondents are expecting to happen.

To overcome these, Singapore business leaders are prioritising investments in

Singapore lagged behind Vietnam and Australia.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital skills development, data-system integration and overseas expansion in the next two years.

About 67% of these respondents stated that they are expanding digitalisation efforts into new areas of their business, whilst 62% stated that they will continue to boost the level of automation in areas where they are already automating.

Such decisions also come on the back of local businesses looking to recalibrate strategies to align with consequences of increased automation and cross-border policy changes, PwC revealed.

“The changes that many have started to implement may prove to be the antidote to many problems including skills shortage, trade barriers and policy uncertainties,” PwC stated in the report.

Singapore intoxicates premium alcohol firms

T

Source: PwC Singapore

16

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

he rising affluent class of Singapore has brought on a premiumisation trend in Singapore’s alcohol industry, as its attractiveness in Asia rose to the 10th spot out of 18 countries in Q1 2020 from its 14th spot in Q4 2019, according to Fitch Solutions’ latest Alcoholic Drinks Risk/Rewards Index.

The country’s outlook on alcohol consumption per capita, alcohol growth over the next five years and total alcohol consumption improved, outpacing Philippines, Cambodia and Thailand. However, it lagged behind South Korea, China, Japan and Malaysia.

Fitch Solutions also projected that Singapore’s alcohol consumption per capita will grow by an annual average of 2.4% over the five-year term 2019-2023.

“Of further attraction to those operating in the alcohol sector is the growing demand for more premium drinks offerings in Singapore,

as not only is the volume of alcohol consumed increasing, but the cost consumers are willing to spend within the sector is expanding,” Fitch Solutions stated in the report.

A cited example is when Singapore Airlines announced in 2019 that it will expand their premium wine offerings by introducing 47 new burgundies.

Source: Fitch Solutions

CLOUD SERVICES FEATURE

Bolstering the IT workforce of the future

CEO Dr Anton Ravindran shares his thoughts and the Training and Certification Organizations role in industry 4.0.

F

or someone who has been in the IT industry for three decades, Dr Anton Ravindran, CEO of GICT Training, said that for nearly a decade now, cloud computing adoption has been experiencing exponential growth globally and certainly in Singapore.

“Developments in the Cloud space has been relentlessly growing. Research studies have found that 90% of organisations will be using some form of cloud computing services in the next two years and 49% of organizations have adopted a cloud-first approach for deploying net new applications.

451 Research predicts the cloud computing market to reach $53.3 billion in 2021 – up from $28.1 billion in 2017,” he explained.

Cloud’s role in IOT This growth and progress is attributable to open-source technologies, Kubernetes and CNCF amongst other developments, added Dr Anton, who has been with multinationals such as IBM, CA, Singalab (IBM and NCB JV) and Sun Microsystems in the past in technical and management capacities, and is a serial entrepreneur now. “The cloud is fast becoming the foundation for IOT that uses data at the edge of the network. These IOT devices are beginning to use AI to derive

Dr Anton Ravindran

insights. Going forward, we will experience more natural and intelligent interactions with computers in the Cloud.”

With the growing proliferation of IOT devices, edge computing and fog computing will continue to develop and become part of this ecosystem, a bright sign when it comes to handling tons of data and bandwidth latency-related issues. IOT devices can rely on Cloud for storing all the processed information whilst edge computing will play a role in balancing the workload in processing

organizations, such as WDA and SSG, extend grants and funding for Singaporeans to pursue training programmes in these technologies.

GICT Training aims to plug the skills gap in the region by offering programmes through an Authorised Training Partner Network.

These programmes have been mapped to Singapore’s National Infocomm Framework (NICF) and are endorsed by IMDA under the CITREP + funding program for eligible participants in Singapore.

“GOING FORWARD, WE WILL EXPERIENCE MORE NATURAL AND INTELLIGENT INTERACTIONS WITH COMPUTERS IN THE CLOUD.”

Intelligent Cloud Aside from cloud, Dr Anton noted that both IOT and AI are growing at breakneck speed.

Being connected and online is rapidly growing and becoming pervasive. With 5G network, the connectivity will be faster with enormous capacity. Dr Anton sees that, in the not so distant future, every device will simply be connected to the Cloud and the Cloud will become more intelligent as Machine Learning becomes more infused into software, process and systems.

“According to Merrill Lynch, the robotics and AI solutions market will reach US$153b by 2020. The same study found that the adoption of AI and robotics will result in boosting productivity by 30% in many industries, while simultaneously manufacturing organizations will be able to save on labour costs by 18-30%,” he explained.

When asked about cloud’s heightened adoption particularly in the accounting, legal and manufacturing sectors, Dr Anton noted that businesses are increasingly becoming accustomed to the “pay-per-use” cloud billing model, and now look upon IT investments as an operational cost, rather than a fixed cost.

This allows them to focus their expenditure on their core business without the need to invest in infrastructure and on dedicated IT teams to support and maintain the technology and applications.

To meet the growing demand for highly skilled experts in these fields, GICT Training shall continue to develop additional content, courseware and certification programmes in key technology areas as well as on blockchain.

The CEO shared that the academy will be introducing more digitised content and online programmes for the global audience in 2020.

the voluminous data and the growing need to draw instantaneous insights at the edges.

However, one of the key challenges organisations are faced with is lack of skills.

Aside from a global shortage of skills in cloud computing, data science/big data, AI, IOT and cyber security, the industry will require experts in mathematics and statistics as data becomes one of the most important assets of any business.

Local universities have introduced more programmes that cater to the growing demand for applied skills in these areas. GICT Training has been a pioneer in the ASEAN, South Asian and Middle East region in offering open-source technology based and vendor neutral training on Cloud Computing for the past 10 years, with training and certification in Business Analytics, Data Science, IOT, AI and Blockchain.

Plugging the skills gap In Singapore, BCG predicts public cloud deployment to generate $41.09b (US$30b) for the country’s GDP between 2019 and 2023 and create nearly 22,000 jobs, particularly 8,000 in digital and technologyrelated roles.

To qualify for these highly sought after tech positions, they need to acquire applied knowledge and skills in these key technology areas of the future. In Singapore, initiatives and grants by IMDA and other government

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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STARTUPS COVE’s co-living spaces are 45% cheaper than market prices

Novelship fills the gaps in the sneakers reseller market

Novelship team

Guillaume Castagne, Luca Bregoli and Sophie Jokelson

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illennial professionals who aren’t yet ready to put the downpayment on a condo and dread the idea of taking a saturday walk around IKEA to furnish a rental can now turn to housing startup COVE, which promises to handle everything from booking a unit to furnishing.

COVE says it can offer cheaper prices and provide an all-in fee which includes furnishing, utilities, weekly housekeeping, cleaning supplies and Wi-Fi connection. What’s more, COVE offers an average monthly cost of $1,700, which is 6% cheaper than a flatshare and 45.51% cheaper than a studio apartment.

“The main pain points we’re trying to solve is the question of affordability,” said Guillaume Castagne, co-founder and CEO of COVE. “People, especially in their 20s, cannot afford to buy a house or an apartment anymore. We’re trying to solve the affordability crisis, where people will need to actually have now more rent, smaller spaces and more customised to their needs, because potentially they only need room.”

In addition, Castagne shared that renting an apartment takes a lot of time and effort. Finding one in multiple websites and talking to agents could take days, whereas COVE allows buyers to book and pay directly online.

They would also take care of the design and furnishings of the place. The platform has 3D tools so that interested tenants won’t have to go outside.

The startup uses a matching algorithm that aids in managing thousands of properties across Southeast Asia.

COVE bagged $2.72m (US$2m) in a seed funding round last September, led by Venturra Capital, as well as VC firms Yuj Ventures, Picus Capital and Investigate.

Raditya Pramana, partner at Venturra Capital, said that COVE fits well with the growing potential in the coliving space.

“Our investment mandate has to always invest in high growth companies all around Southeast Asia. And for COVE, their aspiration is to create a co-living brand that is uniform all around the six major countries in Southeast Asia, starting from Singapore. They will be slowly expanding to the other market very soon,” Pramana said.

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ome people invest in art, others in jewellery, but to some fashionminded youngsters, a pair of limited-edition sneakers is an investment they want to make. The demand is high even for the most expensive items, like the Kanye West x Louis Vuitton sneakers which go for US$30,000. Costing thousands of dollars, the problem for online buyers is to ensure they really are getting the genuine article, and not a knock off.

Stepping in to solve this issue is Novelship, which acts as a “gatekeeper” for authenticity and product condition, aiming to improve the trust between buyers and sellers. It is an online shopping

platform for resellers of authentic sneakers and streetwear, where they check the quality and originality of all products before shipping them. They examine the logo placement, serial numbers, manufacturing codes and inside stitching of the product. It also acts like an auction marketplace, where buyers can request for a product and state how much they are willing to pay for and purchase it at its lowest asking price. Sellers can also choose which price they want for the item. Buyers can expect packages to arrive seven to nine days after purchase confirmation.

“So far, we have handled over 3000 transactions and have received zero complaints from buyers that products were found to be fake,” said Chris Xue, co-founder and COO of Novelship.

In August, Novelship raised $2.79m (US$2.05m) in a seed funding led by Global Founders Capital (GFC).

The startup plans to use the proceeds to install more payment options, such as instalments and non-card payments, and to give better fee structures for sellers.

This dental tech startup offers invisible braces can treat,” said Julian Artopé, CEO and founder of Zenyum.

“A direct implication of this study would suggest that we can expect demand for cosmetic dentistry to continue to increase,” he added.

Another pain point that Artopé would Frederik Krass and Julian Artopé like to address is the lack of accessibility for etting braces can be both pricey and teeth alignment treatments from a logistics a hassle especially when people need perspective. He cited Jakarta and Thailand as examples, where people can spend half to wear it for two to three years. a day travelling to an appointment.

To solve this pain point, dental tech startup In late November, Zenyum secured Zenyum has released 3D-printed invisible $18.57m (US$13.6m) in a series A funding braces.

These braces are said to align teeth within round led by RTP Global. It was also attended by Sequoia India, TNB Aura and three to five months and are 70% cheaper Enterprise Singapore’s investment arm than regular ones. Customers just have to SEEDS Capital. go through a pre-assessment on Zenyum’s The startup aims to expand their website, which will be assessed by their product offerings beyond invisible braces orthodontists and dentists. They can then visit one of the startup partner clinics for a 3D into retainers, teeth whitening and more.

They will name this new category “Smile intraoral scan to create a set of customised Cosmetics.” invisible aligners.

“Smile Cosmetics, and cosmetic “We have estimated that, based on the dentistry in general, is a field that requires current population in Southeast Asia, 29% professional input and consultations to fall within the consumer’s middle class ensure success, and we wanted to lead and within our target age range of 18 to the charge in communicating this to the 35. In this segment, we identify 75% as general public,” Artopé added. having teeth with conditions that Zenyum

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STARTUPS SEPPURE turns chemical separation greener of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in a year. “Not only these processes are operating at massive scale, but also they require immense amounts of energy that account for up to 15% of the planet’s entire energy consumption,” said Mohammad H. D.A. Farahani, CEO and co-founder at SEPPURE. He also shared that their tech can take high temperatures up to 120°C, whilst their filtration throughput (membrane flux) for many organic solvents is much larger Mohammad H.D.A. Farahani and Amir Taheri than their competitors (5-10X higher).

In a seed funding round, SEPPURE hemtech startup SEPPURE wants bagged $3.54m (US$2.6m) last August. to reduce the Earth’s energy It was led by SOSV and participated by consumption when it comes to Entrepreneur First (EF), 500 Startups and separating chemicals by offering a novel SGInnovate. The proceeds will be used nano-filter technology. The firm claims that they provide a greener alternative to to run industry-scale pilots across other industries. thermal chemical separation processes “They have a unique and patented such as evaporation and distillation. technology in an area where there is very Such methods are being commonly little competition. The potential impact used in industries ranging from food, is huge,” said Duncan Turner, general pharmaceutical, and petrochemical. Its partner at SOSV. “There is already a huge solution can separate chemical without pipeline of potential customers. Once the heat and using 90% less energy, which can potentially conserve billions of gallons technology has been fully commercialised, I expect Seppure to be achieving significant of water, millions of tonnes in volatile organic compound emissions and billions revenues very quickly indeed,” he added.

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CHIL reduces prematurity risks through data analysis

Ravneet Kaur

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n an effort to save infants from the effects of prematurity, healthtech startup Child Health Imprints (CHIL) created a platform based on IoT for neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) by capturing real-time clinical data from the connected devices, laboratory results, and bedside clinical observations.

It then collects and analyses data from the hospital information system (HIS), lab information system (LIMS) and connected medical devices such as monitors and ventilators. The key feature is a surveillance device called NEO, which is able to monitor the early onset of morbidities and length of stay using predictive analytics, as well as prevent medication errors by automating doctor

and nursing progress notes. “Genesis of the team is to find solution of the preterm morbidity and mortality across the globe.

The innovation is protected by technology patents, domain expertise encapsulated in the form of deep learning analytics and managing huge data of neonates across regulated and nonregulated market,” said Ravneet Kaur, co-founder and vice president of CHIL. It can also displays the infant’s postdischarge prescription data and encourages vaccinations until adolescence.

In November, CHIL secured $3.14m in a series A funding led by early-stage venture capital fund HealthXCapital. The startup is also backed by the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore, Seeds Capital.

“CHIL holds great potential to be rolled out in tier 2 cities in a hub-and-spoke model to enhance access to neonatal care where we don’t have neonatologists. In its aspired state, CHIL shall enable a neonatologist located in a tier 1 city to manage cases located in tier 2 cities remotely,” said Seemant Jauhari, managing partner at HealthXCapital.

How Ai Palette can solve FMCGs’ multi-billion problem

Himanshu Upreti, Somsubhra Choudhuri and Salomi Naik

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o bolster the success rate of new product launches in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, Ai Palette launched a platform that provides the kind of data that manufacturers need in order to better predict consumer preferences.

Ai Palette’s co-founder and CEO, Somsubhra Choudhuri, stated that the success rate of product launches is less than 10% and failures can incur an average loss of US$5m per product, amounting to a US$40b annual loss globally. To help businesses avoid losses, the startup established a platform dubbed as Foresight Engine, a cloud-based AI platform that harnesses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computer vision.

The platform shows data on food trends in a particular food category for a country. For example, if a beverage brand in Indonesia wants to understand its market better, the platform can be configured for their specific needs with geography and food category as Indonesia and Beverage respectively.

Another solution by Ai Palette is “Screen Winner”, which screens and validates new concepts based on consumer needs, identifying motivations and opportunity areas where the company could focus their innovation on.

“FMCG companies traditionally use conventional research methods like Category reports to understand the trends. These reports typically give a static view of category and become outdated very quickly as consumer preferences are now changing very fast; and more often than not the results are affected by biases such as response bias and group-think,” said Choudhuri.

So far, they have contracts from several FMCG giants that have been recognised amongst the Fortune 500 companies.

In August, Ai Palette raised $1.5m in a seed round led by cross-border venture capital (VC) firm Decacorn Capital. It was also participated by SGInnovate, Silicon Valley and foodtech-focused VC AgFunder.

“What made Ai Palette stand apart from the crowd was the speed with which they could build, not just a powerful trend-spotting platform but can also layer it with a comprehensive prediction engine, combining cognitive AI, data analytics and a proprietary natural language algorithm. This can overcome language barriers in Asia’s diverse terrain and it can also create early traction with global food and beverage brands. They are in a position to transform the product development process,” commented Abhijit Banerjee, the managing director at Decacorn Capital.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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EXCLUSIVE: SPACE WATCH

PayPal refreshes its Singapore Innovation Lab with tech offerings It incorporates a facial recognition system to register guests to its in-house Augmented Reality-supported bar.

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ayPal revamped its first Innovation Lab outside the US, which was established in Singapore in 2016. The lab has been equipped with a coworking space, a private meeting room, and two sitting areas that can be transformed to accommodate varying group sizes for various activities. It also now includes a bar supported by Augmented Reality (AR) technology.

Here, PayPal has worked with SMEs including TeeSaurus, Edible Garden City and Singapore Repertory Theatre in addressing business challenges, Paypal’s head of Singapore Development Centre Jerry Tso told Singapore Business Review. It has also collaborated with

Jerry Tso

startups like InvoiceInterchange, Tenx and PolicyPal by offering a co-working space, market access, curriculum with fintech experts, access to investors and guidance in developing proof of concepts (POCs). Its R&D team has also developed 12 POCs and eight patents.

It also serves as a core research centre for PayPal where it develops fintech research talents, creates IPs and collaborates with institutes of higher learning.

It also holds various programmes for students interested in pursuing a tech career. Recently, the lab was refreshed to show the myriad ways to incorporate technological innovations in commerce.

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PayPal’s Innovation Lab co-working space has a private meeting room and two sitting areas. Both can be adjusted to accommodate varying group sizes.

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Idea Brewing Co is the lab’s in-house bar, where drinks are served by a resident robo-waiter, Alfred.

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The in-house facial recognition system for Idea Brewing Co’s guests. Visitors can sign up for a showcase by taking a selfie.

Idea Brewing Co’s virtual menu which tailors drink recommendations based on data like the weather and visitors’ facial expressions.

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Guests can explore and buy the lab’s merch - which include a printed t-shirt or leather coasters - for sale through an app.

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The lab’s data wall, which displays the number of live transactions around the world in real time.

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FOOD

Bonchon Singapore’s new series of beverages

Dealing with the dynamic challenges of F&B in Singapore In less than five years, the company’s market capitalisation has grown more than 15-fold from below $20m to over $320m today.

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here are constant challenges in managing food and beverage businesses in the foodservice channel in Singapore. Operators are constantly looking to improve their operations to reduce costs through efficiency. Business owners need to capture the fast-moving beverages trends to increase sales and margin, in a complex environment where trends evolve or fad through the various influences in the region, thereby making it critical for operators and drink makers to respond quickly in order to ride on the new wave of beverage hits.

DaVinci Gourmet understands that each channel in the foodservice industry is different, and the company aims to work with each customer to customise beverage solutions suited to their needs. This year, they partnered with three customers to understand their business challenges and operational constraints and propose beverage solutions through the three pillars of craft, science and art of drink making.

Creativity and craftsmanship in coffee Innovation is key in Singapore’s vibrant coffee industry where coffee concepts have evolved from the various influences in Australia, Japan, Korea and the US. Mellower Coffee is one who aims to innovate and create new beverage trends that would resonate with the consumers.

DaVinci Gourmet partnered with Mellower Coffee this year on exclusive Limited Time Offers to develop creative drink concepts that complement with their coffee beans and tea. The recent offer “Autumn revitalization” brings a freshness of autumn flavours with orange and honey ginger to cater to the millennials and working professionals who are game to try these new flavours.

“By working with their mixologists, we can create interesting flavours that shy away from tradition. Adopting a customercentric approach and constantly pushing the boundaries, this has resulted in one of our bestselling seasonal beverages, the Zingy Espresso Fizz!” Melvin Yap, Operations Services Manager, explained.

How pairing elevates the dining experience Players in the restaurant channel often underestimate the importance of a strong beverage menu as the focus is mainly on food. In reality, a strong beverage menu would help to increase profit as food and beverage pairing is key to drive higher sales transaction and improve the experience.

One customer who sees the benefit of a beverage menu revamp is Korean food restaurant Bonchon Chicken. DaVinci

Gourmet tied up with Bonchon to develop a new series of beverages to revitalise their menu in 2019. Prior to this, Bonchon only served simple beverages such as coffee, tea and soft drinks. This successful collaboration with Bonchon enabled them to increase the overall beverage sales by 80%, as their customers enjoyed the pairing of refreshing fruit flavoured beverages that complements well with Bonchon’s signature Korean fried chicken. The sour, tart and acidic note from the fruit flavours of the spritzers contrast the richness of the fried dishes, making it a more pleasant dining experience.

“As I have used DaVinci Gourmet in the past, I knew that the beverage R&D team comprising of Jeff Ho and Milton Chee was strong. They investigated the characteristic of Bonchon food menu and created suitable beverages for pairing., explained Edward Lim, General Manager, Bonchon Singapore Pte Ltd. AI tools at the frontier of beverage trends The bubble tea shop is a very dynamic and fast-moving channel as consumers are highly exposed to the new and trendy flavours that are emerging from other leading markets such as Taiwan and China. Bubble tea players face the challenge of delivering trendy beverage concepts in a timely manner that would need to resonate with the local palate.

LiHo, one of the most successful players in the Singapore bubble tea scene, partnered with DaVinci Gourmet to analyse and predict the next wave of bubble tea that would hit Singapore and to develop these products that would resonate with the locals. DaVinci Gourmet used their proprietary Artificial Intelligence tool to anticipate trends that would be emerging in the region thanks to a unique social media tracking and digital algorithm.

“LiHO’s partnership with DaVinci Gourmet has always been an open two-way communication, where both companies would share key trend information, proprietary product knowledge, and pursue product development plans collectively., said Rodney Tang, the managing director of RTG Holdings.

If you would like to find out how you can collaborate with DaVinci Gourmet as your beverage partner, please go to https://www. apac.davincigourmet.com/contact/ and fill up your details so we can contact you.

DaVinci Gourmet aims to work with each customer to customise beverage solutions suited to their needs.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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INDUSTRY INSIGHT: SPACETECH

How spacetech is soaring in Singapore

Many homegrown startups are looking to build cube satellites and laser quantum communication systems.

˘ ˛ and Mark Lim George-Cristian Potrivitu Bocanet

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ingapore may not yet have its own Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but there are more than 30 companies employing 1,000 people in the space industry, according to the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Of these, at least 10 startups have been formed in the past five years. These startups are engaged in innovative space technologies such as small satellite thruster systems and space-based laser communications, said Lim Tse Yong, EDB’s director of capital goods. More than five foreign space companies have established their presence in Singapore over the past five years.

One homegrown contender which was spun off from NUS is SpeQtral. The startup is commercialising spacebased quantum communication technologies that will reportedly expose any attempt to eavesdrop, providing a safer way to transmit information.

“SpeQtral is a spin-out from CQT based on research and systems developed over the last couple of decades.

We decided the time was right to commercialize the technology because it has been proven on orbit, including the recent SpooQy-1 3U cubesat launched earlier this year,” said Chune Yang Lum, founder and CEO of SpeQtral. PKE, which is currently being used by networks for data and communications transfer, can be easily cracked compared to QKD, Lum added.

The firm’s promise of faster and more secure communications attracted the likes of government-owned SGInnovate and Golden Gate Ventures which invested in SpeQtral’s $1.9m round funding last April. According to Jeffrey Chua, senior associate at Golden Gate Ventures, the only way to currently achieve this encryption is 22

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Most of the space companies we are seeing are already revenue generating or have paid commercial pilots lined up.

through physical means.

“SpeQtral’s system of satellites beaming the encryption keys allows users such as government agencies, financial institutions and bases in remote areas to have access to secure communication over satellite,” Chua said.

And business is booming. SpeQtral’s Lum shared that they have two contracts yet to be announced publicly, apart from global clients who are looking to utilise their services. The firm also plans to add to their current offices in Singapore and the US despite being active for only a year.

Also working towards improving communication, Transcelestial Technologies, another local startup, provides laser communications as an alternative to traditional radio frequency communications.

Another startup Aliena, this time spun off from NTU, specialises in propulsion technology and small and cube satellite technology—a market estimated to grow to approximately $90.42b (US$70b) by 2030. The company is developing ultra-low power, modular, plasma thruster systems targeted at the small and cube satellite markets. Their technology allows these satellites to precisely control their flight whilst in orbit for necessary manoeuvres.

“As the small satellite industry matures, components like thrusters will be outsourced to specialist companies like Aliena that have deep domain expertise. This is evident from the pipeline of customers that Aliena is already speaking with,” 500 Startups general partner Vishal Harnal said of their investment in Aliena.

Every satellite needs a rocket launcher, and aerospace startup Equatorial Space Industries (ESI) seeks to provide cheaper yet safer launches for these small satellites and space-bound objects. Their proposed launch vehicle, the Volans, costs only half of competing products per mission, according to its CEO Simon Gwozdz.

The company is currently gearing up for their first guided test flight and plans to carry out their first suborbital mission in the first half of 2020, and then develop their orbital launcher afterwards.

500 Startups’ Harnal said that they are not bothered with spacetech firms’ longer turnaround time in making a profit. “We invest with a view that profitability will come in the future as the companies scale and the technology is adopted.”

“Most of the space companies we are seeing are already revenue generating or have paid commercial pilots lined up. That’s always a positive sign of validation for the companies and technology,” he added.

For ESI’s Gwozdz, spacetech firms are not much different from any other startup. “Our gestation period may be longer, since we’re dealing with complex technologies, but the objective is ultimately all the same: to create an attractive product, deliver the best possible service to our clients, and grow in share value for our investors.” By Frances Gagua and Clarist Zablan

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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FINANCIAL INSIGHT: DCM

Investors steer clear of weak corporate bonds as default risks rise

With a record amount of maturing debt, companies in struggling sectors will likely face refinancing risks in the new year as investors are going for higher-grade corporate bonds.

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hen Hyflux defaulted on its retail bonds in April, experts initially feared that this will push investors to steer clear of Singapore bonds.

Now, investors have continued to pour funds into local bonds, but with a caveat—they are only choosing issuers with strong track records, leaving companies in weaker sectors to scramble for financing.

“The high-yield space continues to feel the effects of weakened investor sentiment. As such, the Singapore wholesale bond market has for the past 12 months been dominated by stronger credits including banks, financial institutions, statutory boards and government-linked corporations,” notes Trevor Chuan, Partner – Capital Markets Practice, WongPartnership LLP. UOB data show that transaction volume in the Singapore bond market grew 23.7%, amounting to a total issuance of $21.07b from 75 deals. The jump in issuance of local currency corporate bonds was due to large issuances, led by government-owned institutions.

However, investors have grown more selective this year, spooked by a string large-scale defaults and a record amount of maturing debt. “Trend-wise, investors have been more prudent and astute in choosing bonds, and there is an increased demand for tighter covenant terms

We will see stronger bifurcation between established issuers with very strong credit profiles and everybody else.

KEPPEL INFRASTRUCTURE TRUST ISSUED A $200M 4.75% SUBORDINATED PERPETUAL SECURITIES LAST JUNE 2019

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that would afford bondholders with greater protection.

This is likely influenced by a number of notable defaults in recent years and as weaker economic conditions are expected to send more companies into distress,” says Renu Menon, Director for Corporate & Finance, Drew & Napier.

Perpetual securities on the rise As investors grapple with the current low-yield environment, there has been greater interest in perpetual securities issued by high-grade issuers. Mere weeks after Hyflux’s default, Singapore Press Holdings issued $150m in perpetual securities, with payments pegged at a rate of 4.5% per annum. “In this global low-rate environment, investors are looking for yield. They are willing to go down the capital structure to buy perpetual bonds or increase the holding duration of senior papers,” explains Valerie Lee, Executive Director, Bond Syndicate Asia, Standard Chartered Bank. “We’re also seeing a new lease of life for perpetual bonds, with investor-friendlier structures and issuances by more entrenched names such as ST Telemedia and Frasers Property. Given that investors are looking for yield pick-up, they are willing to go longer in tenor for the high-grade names,” she adds.

UOB JOINED THE PERPETUAL BONDS BANDWAGON AND IS THE FIRST SINGAPORE BANK THAT ISSUED ADDITIONAL TIER-1 CAPITAL PRICED BELOW 4%

FINANCIAL INSIGHT: DCM

Singapore bond market’s transaction volume grew 23.7% in 2019.

“Whilst perpetual securities typically offer higher yields, they are much riskier as there is no obligation by the issuer to repay the principal amount,” explains Edmund Leong, Head of Group Investment Banking, UOB. “Structures such as perpetual securities [appeal to] sophisticated investors with higher risk appetites.”

Even financial institutions have jumped in on the perpetual bonds bandwagon. UOB has issued of $750m 3.58% additional tier-1 perpetual capital securities, marking the first time a Singapore bank has issued additional tier-1 capital that is priced below 4% coupon rate, marking the lowest for this structure in the SGD bond market.

Retail bonds have also fared well, as it is growing in both breadth and depth. “On the retail front, efforts to stimulate the Singapore retail bond market using legislation and innovative products have yielded some notable results,” Chuan says.

Chuan highlights that in the past 12 months, Temasek Holdings became the first issuer to offer retail bonds under the Exempt Bond Issuer Framework. The offering, which included a public offer to retail investors and placement to specified investors, raised a total of $500m with $300m coming from the public offer.

There were also notable issuances from statutory bodies. The Housing & Development Board issued two bonds: a $600m 10-year bond with a coupon of 2.675% and a $500m 7-year bond with a 2.495% coupon. Both issuances are part of its $32b multicurrency medium-term note programme, which aims to finance the company’s development programmes and refinance its existing debts.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) unveiled a 40-year $1.5b offering with a coupon of 3.38%.

The real estate sector dominated the top 30 corporate issuers, accounting for 45.4% of the top 30’s total corporate bonds outstanding at the end of March. This was followed by the transport and finance sectors with market shares of 18.6% and 14.6%, respectively.

Quality issuers dominate deals “We will see stronger bifurcation between established issuers with very strong credit profiles and everybody else,” warns Hui Choon Yuen, Head – Debt Capital Markets Practice; Partner – Financial Services Regulatory and Private Wealth Practices, WongPartnership LLP. “With the former, there will always be demand for their bonds

Edmund Leong

Hui Choon Yuen

Renu Menon

Trevor Chuan

Valerie Lee

and they will continue to tap the debt capital markets opportunistically and take advantage of good pricing opportunities. For the latter, finding sufficient investor demand at the right price is always the challenge and we do not see that changing any time soon,” he says.

For instance, Hui stated that the retail offerings by SIA, Temasek and Azalea Group were launched in the wake of a high profile default by Hyflux of its retail perpetual securities. “The concern was that such a high profile default would have negatively impacted appetite for retail debt instruments. The strong investor interest shown in the above-mentioned offerings proved otherwise,” he notes.

Lee agrees, and says that the private sector has placed more emphasis on reputable companies. “Whilst private banking liquidity has been strong, private banking investors are more selective about the credits that they invest in and they place greater focus on quality names.

Real-estate issuers continue to dominate the issuers profile,” she says.

UOB’s Leong adds that another trend observed this year is the strong investor interest in bank capital issuances from offshore international banks. “Such issuances provide Singapore dollar (SGD) bond investors the ability to diversify their credit portfolios and to achieve better yields relative to other capital instruments from the banks,” he notes.

Moving forward Experts agree that the outlook for Singapore’s debt capital markets remains positive. More foreign issuers are expected to tap the SGD bond market, and highgrade issuers will continue to enjoy strong interest from investors. “On a balance, the outlook in the Singapore Debt Capital Markets scene continues to look positive as investors may continue to favour the bond market. Quality of the offering remains important, and investment-grade issuers are expected to continue to dominate the market,” Menon says.

“New entries (local and foreign) are anticipated to make their presence known, for instance, as infrastructure bonds gain momentum. Singapore’s Debt Capital Markets scene is expected to play a prominent role in raising finance for development and infrastructure spending in the region,” she adds.

Standard Chartered Bank’s Lee agrees. “The outlook for the debt capital market into 2020 remains robust. We expect the current high activity to continue, and the bond market to continue to grow further with the trend for an increased number of foreign issuers to continue,” she notes.

She added that 2020 will see bond maturities in larger sizes, equivalent to and even greater than $500m from a number of corporates. However, challenges remain in the form of heightened trade tensions and increased interest rate volatility. Leverage has risen while interest cover has fallen – a function of both the rise in absolute leverage and higher interest rates. “As interest rates remain low due to the global uncertainties, issuers, are presented windows of opportunity to tap the bond markets to raise funds at an attractive rate,” Leong comments.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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COVER STORY

Can equities and bonds provide growth?

Where to invest your money in 2020

I

t is that time of the year again when everyone looks forward to receiving their annual bonuses and working out what to splurge on and what to invest in. Whilst we have no crystal ball and cannot predict the future (if we could we would give up our day jobs as business editors), we have talked with some of the world’s largest investment banks to come up with a list of some of their best ideas for 2020. Sometimes the banks are in agreement, and sometimes not. But whichever way you choose to invest your money, we wish you good luck and all the cunning you can muster in the year of the rat.

Idea 1: Buy China stocks, sell Southeast Asian stocks Credit Suisse says it prefers North Asian markets, particularly China, over South Asian ones to take exposure to potential cyclical recovery.

Within this market, China property is their preferred sector. They expect authorities to support real estate investment growth in 2020, with some local governments already loosening demand-curbing measures with the relaxation of its Hukou policy.

Its analysts expect revenue and earnings to grow by 21% and 18% in 2020, respectively. “Valuations are at attractive levels. If policies are relaxed, valuations could mean-revert to their historical average, offering a 20% upside. Property stocks also pay a high dividend yield of 6.3%,” they noted.

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SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

John Woods

Julian Wee

Idea 2: If you must buy ASEAN stocks, buy Singapore Amongst ASEAN markets, Singapore is Credit Suisse’s pick of the bunch. They expect Singapore equities to perform in line with regional markets in 2020 as the subdued growth environment continues to cap upside for the market despite their favourable valuation.

Further, the market is expected to deliver 3.5% earnings growth over the next 12 months; however, a high dividend yield of 4.0% should attract investors and continue to provide support to the market on the downside. If you are looking into particular sectors, you may want to avoid Singapore banks, because lower interest rates are likely to cap the upside for banks.

Asian Equities: On the Cusp of a Cyclical Recovery

Source: Datastream, Credit Suisse/IDC

COVER STORY Even REITs aren’t an excellent bet. Credit Suisse arguse that after a 20% rally this year and with the 10-year Singapore government bond yield near historical lows, near-term capital upside in Singapore REITs could be more constrained. “Nonetheless, we see limited risk of a material correction as long as interest rates stay low globally. REITs with strong acquisition pipelines and with asset recycling and enhancement opportunities are likely to outperform,” they noted.

However, for HSBC’S Herald van der Linde, head of equity strategy for Asia Pacific, the Philippines offers the best potential for 2020 by growing 17.9%. Singapore stock prices, on the other hand, are projected to increase by just 9.6%.

Idea 3: Short-duration high-yield Asian corporate debt If you’re going to invest in a company’s debt, be wary of developed markets where low interest rates have made for tight credit spreads which are inadequate to compensate for the risk of rising defaults, argues Credit Suisse. Instead, investors should look at Asian investment grade bonds and notes which would be a resilient segment for investors looking for cash alternatives. The bank forecasts Asia investment grade debt could deliver a total return of 3% in the next 12 months. For yield-seeking investors, the short-duration Asia high-yield of 7% is interesting as the region’s credit outlook improves.

Governments, particularly in China, are loosening their reins to make it easier for companies to keep earning and repay their debt. For example, Chinese authorities have taken steps to prevent the real estate sector from overheating, and Credit Suisse believes that their actions are not aimed at depressing or constraining the sector, given the weakness in manufacturing.

Leading property developers have also reported reasonable year-to-date sales growth and will likely to continue to do so.

A constrained near-term issuance schedule should work to ease default risk by forcing some deleveraging of developer balance sheets, and finally, the greaterthan-7% yield of Asian high-yield bonds remains attractive relative to developed markets and is not expensive compared to its 10-year average, the analysts “Sweet spot” in credit: Asian high yield bonds

Source: Bloomberg, Credit Suisse

OUTLOOK

Top debt picks: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Investment Grade: With few fallen angles expected, we prefer BBB over A, specifically China BBB state-owned enterprises (SOEs), LGFVs, and property.

Top picks: CITLTD 4% 2028; HAOHUA 3.875% 2029; MINMET 4.75% 2025; VNKRLE 5.35% 2024; POLRYE 3.875% 2024; YUEXIU 5.375% 2023.

High-yield: We like Chinese developers, especially short-dated Bs and longdated BBs. We see Indonesian and India HY corporates as expensive given their weaker outlook. We are cautious on Chinese industrial HY given its higher default risk. Top picks: CENCHI 6.75% ‘21, EVERRE 6.25% ‘21, FTHDGR 8.375% ‘21, JINGRU 9.45% ‘21, KAISAG 7.875% ‘21, SUNAC 8.35% ‘23 and TPHL 6.6% ‘23.

Ray Farris

Suresh Tantia

Joyce Liang

note. They forecast Asia high-yield bonds to deliver 6% total return in the next 12 months.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch largely agrees and expects both Asian investment grade and high yield bonds to provide respectable returns. With 10-year treasury bonds already trading close to 2%, BofAML has stronger conviction on their Asian high-yield return forecast than on investment grade bonds. After a weak performance in 2018, year-to-date 2019 Asian high-yield debt yields have dropped from 10.1% at the beginning of the year to 7.4% currently. But despite this drop, the valuation has remained quite attractive.

Another sector worth highlighting would be HK investment grade corporates, reckons the bank. The adverse impact from the longer-than-expected social unrest and riots in the city is concerning, said BofAML. Whilst the bank believes a short-term recession is inevitable, they see a manageable impact on credit fundamentals of Hong Kong developers. Falling property prices and rentals should hurt HK developers’ earnings and NAV, but their ability to cover interest payments should remain solid, given their substantial holdings of investment properties with solid recurring income and relatively low indebtedness levels.

But not all debt is equal and the bank cautions investors to merely seek out higher yielding bonds.

“We stress credit selection is key as we have seen increasing size of distressed debt and higher refinancing needs for HY credits next year. Specifically, we prefer Chinese HY property on better fundamental outlook and improved technicals but remain cautious on Chinese HY industrials over its higher default risk. For yield enhancement, we recommend short-end high beta Bs and long-end higher quality issuers for better risk-reward combination,” they add.

Idea 4: Gold (and other precious metals) Gold has never really been out of fashion, and makes many an appearance in stories dating back to the biblical age. The past year saw a jump in gold prices, begging the question of whether investors have missed the boat or if prices will climb even further. There is probably more speculation about the price of gold than actually buying the glittering SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

27

COVER STORY metal, but Credit Suisse thinks gold prices and other precious metals are likely to remain supported as long as (real) yields remain low or even if negative and economic uncertainty persists. They note that whilst speculative long positions in gold are high, they see no clear catalysts to trigger a major unwind of these positions.

Union Bancaire Privée group CIO Michael Lok says another catalyst for gold is the negative deposit rates in Europe. In 2019, the European Central Bank (ECB) cut its deposit rate by 10bp to -0.5% whilst also resuming its bond-buying programme and amending its forward guidance policy. Sweden’s Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank have also maintained negative deposit rates of -0.25% and -0.75%, respectively. As retail banks begin to pass on the costs of negative deposit rates to their customers, physical gold will attract increasing attention from retail investors, providing strong support for gold prices over the course of 2020. “Because central banks want to avoid buying negative-yielding bonds, gold reserves should become increasingly attractive,” argues Lok. Macquarie Bank is more cautious, arguing that not all that glitters is gold.

2019’s been a good year for all precious metals and the complex is up 10-30%, according to Macquarie.

Collapsing real rates in the US and Europe, combined with rising global trade/political tension, was a winning combination of price drivers for gold, silver, and platinum. However, these factors are now largely ‘priced in’, reckons the bank, such that trade resolution or a general growth recovery probably are the key short-term risks for the precious metal’s price outlook.

For non-gold precious metals, the bank said that the sticky Palladium to Platinum price differential of over USD$600/oz is still in play.

“We now accept that the market conditions that delivered it in late 2018 are probably unresolvable for now: platinum’s features a supply-chain surplus + diesel-hit demand; palladium lacks stocks + petrolbased demand’s rising. But as vehicle manufacturers are unwilling to make a risky Pd-Pt switch so close to an electric vehicle evolution the differential looks set to persist.”

Idea 5: The Chinese empty-nester Despite having urbanised and having gotten wealthier, China as a society struggles with ageing.

This has given rise to more investment opportunities for companies that are set to grow by selling to wealthy, urbanised empty nesters.

In 2019, Global Demographics estimates that c44% of all adult consumers in urban China are aged between 40 and 64, the so-called “emptynester” cohort, and account for c53% of all urban consumer spending in China, reported HSBC. These empty-nesters tend to shift their consumption to experiences rather than things significant 28

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Herald van der Linde

Marcus Garvey

Wilson Ng

implications for the growth or decline in demand for specific products and services.

In particular, a survey revealed that these nesters are more interested in travel, sports, and home improvement than in cars or TVs and that they also aim to upgrade by buying products which are of higher quality or a stronger brand. HSBC’s van der Linde believes this is why companies like Ctrip can confidently argue that their international business, which currently accounts for one-third of revenue, will grow to c.50% in next four to five years, and why sportswear companies – benefitting from empty-nesters trying to stay fit – reported 15-30% revenue growth in 2019.

Idea 6: Asia’s smaller cities HSBC also noted that the big growth in ASEAN is not occurring in the capitals, but in smaller cities where factories are setting up, and this is driving changes in consumption.

The key, Van der Linde stressed, is to understand that urbanisation in ASEAN – with the exception of the Philippines – is accelerating. In addition, the region’s urbanisation is unique in that it is increasingly driven by people moving to medium-sized and smaller urban centres, not the metropolitan cities.

The list of small- and medium-sized cities that were expected to grow beyond 50% up to 2015 included places such as Gresik, Makassar, Denpasar and Batam in Indonesia; Cebu in the Philippines; and Samut Prakan in Thailand. A lot of this has to do with improved access (think roads and bridges) to these cities, allowing factories to establish themselves near these smaller cities, and driving employment as well as income growth.

Three examples of companies set to benefit from the rise of the smaller cities are Indonesia’s telecom operator XL Axiata, food producer Mayora Indah, and Thailand’s Home Product Centre. A list of HSBC’s top stock picks is below.

Idea 7: Investing for good What would Greta Thunberg say if she saw your stock

Key thematic picks into 2020

Source: Price as of 19 Nov 2019, J.P. Morgan Asia Equity Strategy, J.P. Morgan Equity Research

COVER STORY economies and most apparent in global innovation value chains where there is a need to integrate many suppliers closely in just-in-time sequencing. Around 60% of goods trade (an increase from 56% in 2007) and 60% of services trade (from 46% in 2007) took place within Asia in 2017. In 2000, only three corridors within Asia had trade volume of more than US$50b; by 2017, there were 15, notes JP Morgan.

Taiwan and Korea came next as beneficiaries of highend supply chain moves and re-shoring.

These are HSBC’s best stock picks for 2020

portfolio chock-full of tobacco companies, coal miners, oil drillers and dirty power corporates? She may say “how dare you”, but can you be a good investor and a good human being at the same time? JP Morgan thinks that not only can you do this, it also makes good sense to invest in companies that have favourable Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) scores.

On the environmental front, there is global cooperation amongst companies and organisations on issues like climate change, with a focus on emissions and renewable energy, global carbon pricing, pollution control and recycling, water and forest conservation, carbon capture, plant-based protein, amongst others. On the social front for corporates, issues like addressing discrimination, employee well-being, and contribution to communities are increasingly discussed.

Recently, the US Business Roundtable marked a remarkable turn in this direction when it updated its statement of purpose to suggest companies should strive towards benefiting all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Similarly, for the first time in its 19 years of surveying CEO transitions in the world’s largest companies, a PwC study found that in 2018 more CEOs were dismissed for ethical lapses than for financial performance or board struggles.

Union Bancaire’s Lok says responsible investing can also be used to identify new investment opportunities at a time of accelerating global change. Electric vehicles, sustainable farming and financial services in developing countries are just a few examples of large industries that owe their success in part to businesses’ efforts to contribute more to sustainability, he adds.

Idea 8: Asian companies that will benefit from the trade war America’s trade war with China is seeing factories move to other Asian countries and with that are more opportunities. There is also an increase of intra-Asian trade and investment at the expense of global trade. After years of decline, the intraregional share of global goods trade is now rising, according to an analysis by McKinsey.

That share has increased by 2.7 percentage points since 2013, and the trend is most marked in Asia and EU-28

Michael Lok

Stephen Suttmeier

Idea 9: Chinese e-commerce players BofA Merrill Lynch believes Alibaba and JD.com will continue to benefit from the robust growth in China’s e-commerce industry. China’s e-commerce market should continue posting healthy growth in 2020, driven by increasing adoption of online shopping in lower tier cities and steady rise in average customer spending. They forecast e-commerce in 2020 to grow 22% YoY to US$2.09t (vs 24% YoY in 2019E), the number of online shoppers to reach 709 million by 2020 (+8% YoY from 660 million in 2019E) and online retail penetration to rise to 31.6% in 2020 from 28% in 2019E. Alibaba and JD.com are expected to maintain their dominant market positions with an estimated 50% and 12% share of China’s e-commerce market in 2020, respectively.

Idea 10: Keep buying American stocks Donald Trump likes buying American, so perhaps you should too. American stocks are currently at record highs, up 24% by the end of November, so a contrarian investor may think now is not the best time to pile in and buy more. Indeed, nothing feels worse than buying in at the top of a market only to see it plunge in a crash. Yet many banks reckon the American market still has legs to run.

Amongst them is BofA Merrill Lynch, who notes that the S&P 500 broke out into a new secular bull market as of April 2013. The prior bull markets from September 1950 to February 1966 and July 1980 to

China’s eCommerce GMV to grow 22% YoY and online retail penetration to reach 31.6% in 2020

Source: BofA Merill Lynch Global Research

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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COVER STORY If the US is to top out vs MSCI World ex-US (MXWOU), the US Dollar likely needs to decline

Source: BofA Merill Lynch Global Research, Bloomberg

March 2000 lasted 16 to 20 years, which suggests that the current secular bull market could last another decade. Rallies after cyclical corrections of 12% or more during secular bull markets tend to be strong.

These rallies have lasted 30.5 months on average (31.3 median) with an average return of 89.92% (64.77% median). This equates to the S&P 500 achieving 3,874 (median return) and 4,465 (average return) in July/ August 2021. If the three biggest rallies in excess of 100% and the smallest rally of 24.4% 24.4% are removed,, the average and median returns for the remaining rallies suggest SPX 3750-3765.

In case you were wondering whether it’s really a good idea to keep buying American stocks or switch to other markets, BofA Merrill Lynch has some advice. “Many investors are asking: When does the US equity market top out vs international equity markets? The S&P 500 (US) has had a leadership trend vs MSCI ACWI ex-US (rest of the world or ROW) since bottoming in late 2007/mid 2008. As of late November 2019, there are no major signs of top and the US is setup for another new relative high within an 11-year+ leadership trend vs ROW. We would get more concerned about a loss of US leadership if the US vs ROW ratio broke below its rising 26 and 40-week MAs.” The US Dollar likely holds the key for US vs ROW. If the US (S&P 500) is to top out relative to ROW (MSCI World ex-US, MXWOU), the US Dollar Index (DXY) likely needs to weaken. Whilst it is not a perfect fit, DXY weakness has generally coincided with weakness for the US vs ROW. Examples of this include the 1985 and 2001 peaks for the DXY, which preceded significant periods of weakness for the US vs ROW. If the DXY struggles in 2020, the risk is that the US equity market begins to struggle relative to the rest of the world.

Idea 11: Buy Singapore, sell Hong Kong Morgan Stanley thinks that there is more potential for medium-term outperformance of the banks and property sector in Singapore vs Hong Kong. This is a result of the lower relative growth of the underlying economies, with MS forecasting a 2018-20 average 30

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Nick Lord

Anil Agarwal

Praveen Choudhary

GDP growth of 0.4% in HK versus 1.2% in Singapore.

Morgan Stanley’s Nick Lord and Selvie Jusman note that Singapore banks have experienced earnings downgrades throughout 2019 as the market has adjusted to the impact of lower rates on NIM and the impact of lower GDP growth on lending. However, undemanding valuation multiples at the beginning of the year, plus high capital ratios, which gave the market some comfort on dividend sustainability, meant that the banks have performed well despite this. Valuation multiples are still undemanding, even though they do not expect EPS to grow much, if at all in 2020. “Our preference is for UOB, which we see as having the most defensive business mix of the Singapore banks. OCBC (EW) is least preferred given the overhang of potential M&A on capital returns.”

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s Wilson Ng and Derek Chang note that Singapore developers are trading at discounts to RNAV around 1 standard deviation wider than their historical (18-year) averages, despite steady growth in home prices where volatility is limited by potential regulation changes On the other hand, Singapore REIT valuations are less compelling, trading at dividend yields near 1 standard deviation more expensive than their historical averages.

Morgan Stanley’s Anil Agarwal and Irene Zhou also report that the HK economy is slowing quickly, and although bank stocks have corrected in 2019, they would continue to avoid the segment. Stocks are trading below long-term averages but the historical average is probably not an instructive comparable – as they observed in other markets (Korea/China) where ROEs structurally trended down. Such bank stocks have looked attractive versus their own history for a decade, but kept derating. The large HK banks face a similar challenge over the next few years, and we may end up seeing a comparable derating.

Hong Kong property remains in a bad state because of the social unrest, with analyst Praveen Choudhary forecasting office rents to decline 5% HoH in H2 2019 with falls up to 10% in 2020. The outlook is worse for the battered luxury malls, with tourist arrivals down 26% YoY in Q3 2019.

Within the HK property space, Morgan Stanley prefer residential stocks with farmland exposure over office and retail landlords.

Singapore property supply growth by category - Limited supply supports rising rent

Source: CDL-HT, CBRE, JTC, STB, URA, Morgan Stanley Research

TECHNOLOGY

Asheesh Mehra, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Antworks

Asheesh Mehra named Innovator of the Year for Technology The visionary and business leader co-led the founding of AntWorks with a purposeful approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

I

n 2015, Asheesh Mehra and co-founder Govind Sandhu set out to disrupt the traditional Robotics Process Automation (RPA) industry by creating a whole new technology category delivering the industry’s first intelligent Integrated Automation Platform (IAP) powered by fractal science.

In four short years, he’s driven the company’s growth from 58 people to more than 500 today, across four continents, while maintaining the organisation’s steadfast commitment to manifesting the power of ethical AI. Today, AntWorks is consistently benchmarked against its competitors, who have been in the industry for far longer, and has been recognised by leading analysts for its industry disrupting approach to RPA, taking the leader ranking in Nelson Hall’s Intelligent Automation Platforms NEAT Research and in Everest Group’s Intelligent Document Processing Peak Matrix, to name a few. Additionally, AntWorks clinched the Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award and 451 Research Firestarter Award.

When AntWorks entered the market, Mehra and Sandhu were very clear that they were not going to replicate yet another, non-scalable RPA tool which did not address the unstructured data challenge enterprises faced (80% of enterprise data is unstructured). With five decades of collective BPO experience, including Mehra leading Infosys Technologies BPO

operations in Asia Pacific, Japan, and the Middle East, the founders approached the industry with a fresh perspective and through a completely different lens, that of the business process user. Mehra and Sandhu set their sights on filling an industry gap with a technology that would allow for enterprises to achieve scalable, straightthrough end-to-end business processing easily, efficiently, and with limited human intervention. For that, Mehra is recognised with SBR’s 2019 Management Excellence Innovator of the Year Award.

With a firm belief that data is the most critical component in an automation journey, Mehra set out to build a platform that could extract and read all data types. Along with, Sandhu and CTO, Dr. Venkatanathan Dwarakanathan, aka “Doc,” they invented an alternative to OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the industry’s standard tool for extracting data. Called Cognitive Machine Reading (CMR), AntWorks’ proprietary technology uses fractal science and pattern recognition to read and ingest every data type. Thus, AntWorks ANTstein SQUARE became the industry’s first IAP that provides enterprises with the ability to process all

types of data using an all-in-one solution for data curation, as well as building, deploying and managing an AI-enabled digital workforce.

Fast forward to 2019, and hundreds of clients later, AntWorks is tipped to revolutionise business processes and the overall operational efficiencies of forwardlooking enterprises across all industries.

One client, Indecomm, a leading SaaS-based technology and services provider to the mortgage industry, was looking for a solution to enable organising, extracting, validating, and standardising of data and documents to automate the mortgage application process.

Using the ANTstein SQUARE platform, Indecomm was able to cut the mortgage approval time in half, whilst significantly improving customer satisfaction.

As a mission-driven organisation, ethics and integrity underpins everything AntWorks approaches, from client relationships to its internal culture. With a mission to manifest the power of ethical AI, AntWorks has a zero-tolerance policy for unethical use of AI and has adopted three principles when considering which clients it chooses to work with: Is the AI algorithm being used for malicious intent? Is the software ethically transparent or auditable? And what kind of carbon footprint are we leaving behind?

Internally, the culture is built on a “familyfirst philosophy,” where flexibility, work-life balance, and being committed to each other are habits and practices lived throughout the organisation. That combination helps the “colony” make a difference individually and collectively and makes the AntWorks talent experience a very rewarding one.

“As a mission-driven organisation, ethics and integrity underpins everything AntWorks approaches, from client relationships to its internal culture.”

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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INSURANCE INDUSTRY SURVEY policy documents within five minutes.

The initiative was launched in January 2019.

Total assets of the 50 largest insurers slipped 6.47% to $217b.

Insurance firms tap into big data for new products

Total assets of the 50 largest insurers went down 6.47% to $217b in 2018.

T

he Pan Island Expressway (PIE), particularly eastbound near Adam Road, is identified as the most dangerous spot for motorists in Singapore, according to a data tool developed by life insurer AXA Singapore.

This consolidates claims to map out accident hotspots in the country, a part of a push to use more data to help insurers better connect with customers.

Singapore Business Review’s annual survey of the insurance sector for 2019 revealed the total assets of the 50 largest insurance providers in 2018 equalled $217b, a 6.47% dip from last year’s $232b.

The top five largest insurers went unchanged. Great Eastern Life Assurance maintained its hold on the top spot with $51b in total assets, up from $49b in 2017. AIA Singapore ended up in second place with a 2.27% decrease in total assets from $44b to $43b. Prudential Assurance Co. Singapore placed third with $38b in total assets. NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative Limited finished fourth with $35b in total assets, and Manulife Singapore rounded up the top five with $11b in total assets, a 22% in 2018 increase from $9b in 2017.

Despite the shrinking asset value, the big players continue to prioritise the digitalisation of their offerings. AXA chief customer and operations officer Jeremy Ong says the insurer’s Give

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Jeremy Ong

Colin Chan

Data Back programme aims to help motorists better understand the risks they will face on the roads across Singapore by sharing data, such as the frequency of occurrence of a motor accident and the average cost of a motor accident claim.

According to its website, the programme displays quantitative data which includes body injury and vehicle damage for private individuals from 2015 to 2017. It also scales AXA’s location-specific accident data to match data from the Singapore Police Force.

The insurer is also offering training in Python basic programming and Tableau analytics, and mentoring their data and actuarial teams.

They have also partnered with other startups such as mobilityX, a startup backed by local transport operator SMRT and Toyota Tsusho, to provide insurance coverage for users through its all-in-one transport app Zipster. “The app allows commuters in Singapore to plan, book and pay for their journeys across a variety of transport modes including buses, trains, shared mobility devices, private hire vehicles and car sharing services,” Ong said.

The insurer also collaborated with merchant app Carousell to allow customers to purchase second-hand car and motorcycle insurance and

Your life journey, in data But AXA is not the only insurer taking advantage of data to address specific needs of consumers. Great Eastern Life is using data to help its customers visualise their life journey, said managing director for group marketing Colin Chan. The GreatAdvice financial planning tool, which they rolled out in April 2019 to their 1.6 million-customer base, streamlines the onboarding of clients with an agent scanning a client’s National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) using an iPad, thereby reducing application time by 20%.

Another initiative launched in May 2019 was GREAT Family Care, which Chan described as “the first in-market critical illness plan covering three generations in a family within a single policy” and gives senior citizens coverage without underwriting needed.

For a premium of $103 per month, benefits include complimentary coverage for current and future children, up until the age of 18, of up to $100,000 against 53 critical illnesses and 25 juvenile conditions, including asthma and epilepsy.

Cyber insurance Whilst the majority of offerings still cater to the largest business segments, new products on cybersecurity and climate change are now in the nascent stage of their development cycles.

Ho Kai Weng, General Insurance Association of Singapore’s chief executive, noted that more insurers have committed to developing affirmative cyber programmes such as MSIG, AXA, Tokio Marine, and AIG. This is to make clear whether a policy covers cyber-related risks or not.

For instance, Tokio Marine’s TM Cyber 365 provides coverage for system and data restoration and protection against cyber threats, but not for broken hardware and physical power failures which compromise a group’s security. However, these products are still at a nascent stage in the development cycle, and awareness and take-up of these policies are still low in Singapore and globally, Ho said.

INSURANCE INDUSTRY SURVEY Classification

2019 TOTAL ASSETS*

2018 RANKING

2018 TOTAL ASSETS

THE GREAT EASTERN LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED

LIFE

$51b

1

$49b

AIA SINGAPORE PRIVATE LIMITED

GENERAL/LIFE

$43b

2

$44b

3

PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCE CO. SINGAPORE (PTE) LTD

LIFE

$38b

3

$37b

4

NTUC INCOME INSURANCE CO-OPERATIVE LIMITED

GENERAL/LIFE

$35b

4

$34b

5

MANULIFE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

LIFE

$11b

5

$9b

6

AVIVA LTD

GENERAL/LIFE

$9b

6

$8b

7

TOKIO MARINE LIFE INSURANCE SINGAPORE LTD

LIFE

$7b

7

$7b

8

HSBC INSURANCE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LIMITED

LIFE

$6b

8

$6b

9

AXA LIFE INSURANCE SINGAPORE PRIVATE LIMITED

LIFE

$3b

10

$3b

10

TRANSAMERICA LIFE (BERMUDA) LTD.

LIFE

$2b

9

$4b

11

OLD MUTUAL INTERNATIONAL ISLE OF MAN LIMITED SINGAPORE BRANCH

LIFE

$1b

15

$1b

12

SWISS LIFE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

LIFE

$995m

13

$2b

13

ETIQA INSURANCE PTE. LTD.

GENERAL/LIFE

$863m

31

$600m

14

MS FIRST CAPITAL INSURANCE LIMITED

GENERAL

$859m

16

$1b

15

FRIENDS PROVIDENT INTERNATIONAL LTD (S’PORE BRANCH)

LIFE

$836m

22

$941m

16

ZURICH INTERNATIONAL LIFE LIMITED (S’PORE BRANCH)

LIFE

$751m

23

$937m

17

RED SWITCH PTE LTD

GENERAL

$690m

20

$972m

18

AIG ASIA PACIFIC INSURANCE PTE. LTD.

GENERAL

$669m

25

$835m

19

MSIG INSURANCE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

GENERAL

$559m

30

$603m

20

INDIA INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE PTE LTD

GENERAL

$529m

26

$761m

21

SWISS REINSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED

GENERAL/LIFE

$504m

14

$2b

22

MUENCHENER RUECKVERSICHERUNGS GESELLSCHAFT

GENERAL/LIFE

$435m

12

$3b

23

TOKIO MARINE INSURANCE SINGAPORE LTD

GENERAL

$424m

34

$480m

24

CHUBB INSURANCE SINGAPORE LIMITED

GENERAL

$387m

37

$396m

25

LIBERTY INSURANCE PTE LTD

GENERAL

$364m

39

$367m

26

CHINA TAIPING INSURANCE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

GENERAL

$316m

41

$347m

27

UNITED OVERSEAS INSURANCE LTD

GENERAL

$238m

43

$311m

28

QBE INSURANCE (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD.

GENERAL

$204m

40

$367m

29

SOMPO INSURANCE SINGAPORE PTE. LTD.

GENERAL

$200m

38

$368m

30

SINGAPORE REINSURANCE CORPORATION LTD

GENERAL

$193m

44

$305m

31

GREAT EASTERN GENERAL INSURANCE LIMITED

GENERAL/LIFE

$175m

50

$168m

32

ALLIANZ GLOBAL CORPORATE & SPECIALTY AG, S BRANCH

GENERAL

$171m

27

$752m

33

ASIA CAPITAL REINSURANCE GROUP PTE LTD

GENERAL/LIFE

$155m

17

$132m

34

ALLIED WORLD ASSURANCE COMPANY, LTD, S’PORE BRANCH

GENERAL

$153m

36

$444m

35

XL INSURANCE COMPANY PLC, SINGAPORE BRANCH

GENERAL

$146m

35

$461m

36

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY SPECIALTY INSURANCE COMPANY

GENERAL

$137m

33

$486m

37

SWISS RE INTERNATIONAL SE, SINGAPORE BRANCH

GENERAL

$73m

42

$331m

38

PARTNER REINSURANCE ASIA PTE. LTD.

GENERAL/LIFE

$71m

18

$1b

39

SCOR REINSURANCE ASIA-PACIFIC PTE LTD

GENERAL/LIFE

$46m

32

$490m

40

EVEREST REINSURANCE COMPANY

GENERAL

$44m

21

$963m

41

AXA CORPORATE SOLUTIONS ASSURANCE SINGAPORE BRANCH

GENERAL

$39m

47

$287m

42

XL BERMUDA LTD

GENERAL

$38m

28

$632m

43

THE TOA REINSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED

GENERAL

$37m

46

$300m

44

AXIS SPECIALTY LIMITED (SINGAPORE BRANCH)

GENERAL

$36m

48

$286m

45

ODYSSEY REINSURANCE COMPANY

GENERAL

$22m

29

$624m

46

SCOR GLOBAL LIFE SE SINGAPORE BRANCH

LIFE

$18m

24

$869m

47

SIRIUS INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE CORPORATION

GENERAL

$17m

49

$258m

48

ALLIANZ SE, SINGAPORE BRANCH

GENERAL/LIFE

$15m

11

$2b

49

ENDURANCE SPECIALTY INSURANCE LTD, SINGAPORE BRANCH

GENERAL

$8m

45

$300m

50

IAG RE SINGAPORE PTE LTD

GENERAL

0

19

TOTAL

$218b

2019 RANKING

INSURANCE COMPANY

1 2

$1b $232b

*Data are derived from Monetary Authority of Singapore’s 2018 Insurance Statistics

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

33

LEGAL INDUSTRY SURVEY

The total headcount of the 25 largest law firms rose 2.66% to 3,008 legal professionals.

Singapore becomes top choice for governing law Dispute resolution and cross-border transactionsare becoming two focal points of legal activity, largely thanks to the country’s open regime.

2

019 has been another year of growth for Singapore’s legal sector as 11 firms reported increases in their lawyer count. The total number of lawyers in Singapore Business Review’s annual Legal Industry Survey of the 22 largest law firms hit 3,008, up 2.66% YoY from 2,930 in 2018.

Allen & Gledhill retained its top spot as its headcount grew from 378 to 405.

This was followed by Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP, with a lawyer count of 376; WongPartnership at 324; Drew & Napier at 269; and Dentons Rodyk & Davidson LLP at 209.

Firms such as TSMP Law, Baker McKenzie and Dentons Rodyk & Davidson all shared that they raised their headcounts to keep up with the increasing demand around dispute resolution and cross-border or M&A transactions. Singapore’s rising attractiveness as a leading dispute resolution hub has urged the government in 2019 to push this further.

In fact, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, ranked Singapore as the world’s most efficient legal framework for settling disputes.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) stated that what sets Singapore apart from other markets is their open arbitration regime, where

34

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Andrew Martin

Loh Kia Meng

Nandakumar Ponniya

PE Ashokan

parties are free to engage lawyers, arbitrators and mediators of any nationality and use any governing law. They also shared Singapore International Arbitration Centre’s (SIAC) latest figures, where it saw more than 400 case filings in 2018, which jumped four times over the last decade.

Nandakumar Ponniya, Asia Pacific chair for international arbitration practice at Baker McKenzie, added that demand for such services are growing as it remains the most cost-efficient way to resolve disputes that parties are unable to resolve themselves, and clients understandably are keen to explore further. “On Restructuring & Insolvency, Singapore now is an alternative to the US and UK in offering a platform that would cater to restructuring on a global basis.

Singapore has extensively reformed its insolvency and restructuring regime in the last few years which now offers a unique blend of provisions drawn from US Chapter 11 legislation and those retained from UK-based legislation.”

One specific case involving iron ore firm H&C S Holdings, which applied for court hearing in the UK. This firm applied for Singapore’s moratorium

law, where they were successfully granted a relief. This law pertains to Section 211B(1) of the Companies Act (Cap. 50) as foreign main proceedings under the UNICITRAL Model Law, where Singapore court will be able to help firms that are unable to pay its creditors. It was recognised by the High Court of England and Wales, according to Rajah & Tann Asia.

“This is the first time a court outside Singapore has recognised section 211B of the Companies Act,” the law firm said. “The overhaul was also aimed at attracting debtors and creditors in the region to come to Singapore for corporate restructuring.”

Moving forward, MinLaw shared the other proposals they had in mind, such as allowing conditional fee agreements where firms will not have to pay their solicitor if the hearings are deemed unsuccessful. Another involves the public consultation had to add improvements to the International Arbitration Act. “A potentially exciting development would be that of third-party funding to fund investigations and potential claims in dispute resolution. Following from a case where Justice Chia Lee Ming made a declaration to permit it in the context of a corporate collapse affecting Singaporean retail investors, it could lead to wider implications for the funding of commercial litigation in Singapore,” PE Ashokan, partner at Withers KhattarWong LLP, noted.

Cross-border transaction hub Other than cross-border disputes, Loh Kia Meng, COO & senior partner Dentons Rodyk, added that large M&A transactions are another focal point of Singapore’s legal activity.

Singapore’s M&A value skyrocketed 154% YoY in 2019 to $17.1b. “I think the government has done a very good job of encouraging and promoting both the use of Singapore as a dispute resolution, but also uses Singapore law as a governing law and cross border, M&A and joint venture transactions,” said Andrew Martin, managing principal at Baker McKenzie.

“The constant re-evaluating of our legal industry will allow Singapore to further establish itself as an overall attractive destination for corporations to do business,” Ashokan added.

LEGAL INDUSTRY SURVEY 2019 Rankings

LAW FIRM

2018 Rankings

Foreign/Local

2018 Legal Professionals

2019 Legal Professionals

Managing Partner

1

Allen & Gledhill

1

Local

378

405

LEE KIM SHIN

2

Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP

2

Local

366*

376

PATRICK ANG

3

WongPartnership LLP

3

Local

302*

324

NG WAI KING

4

Drew & Napier LLC

4

Local

253

269

DAVINDER SINGH, SC - EXEC CHAIRMAN CAVINDER BULL, SC - CEO”

5

Dentons Rodyk & Davidson LLP

5

Foreign

204

209

“PHILIP JEYARETNAM, SC (ALSO ASEAN CEO AND GLOBAL VICE-CHAIR)”

6

Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow

6

Foreign

124

162

ANDREW MARTIN

7

Shook Lin & Bok LLP

10

Local

101

122

SARJIT SINGH GILL, SC

8

Lee & Lee

8

Local

115

115*

KWA KIM LI

9

RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP

7

Local

120

105

AZMAN JAAFAR

9

Eversheds Harry Elias

13

Local

78*

105

PHILIP FONG

10

Withers KhattarWong

9

Local

107

94

DEBORAH BARKER, SC

11

Linklaters

12

Foreign

97

87

NATHALIE HOBBS (ASIA MANAGING PARTNER)

12

Clifford Chance

11

Foreign

98

86

KAI-NIKLAS SCHNEIDER

13

TSMP Law Corporation

14

Local

70

70

THIO SHEN YI, SC STEFANIE YUEN THIO

14

Allen and Overy

15

Foreign

68*

18

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

15

Norton Rose (Asia) LLP

16

Foreign

67**

61

YU-EN ONG (SINGAPORE)

16

Morgan Lewis Stamford LLC

17

Local

59*

59*

NG JOO KHIN

17

Herbert Smith Freehills

19

Foreign

53

53*

ALASTAIR HENDERSON

18

Latham & Watkins LLP

24

Foreign

36**

51

MICHAEL W. STURROCK

19

HFW

21.5

Foreign

40

48

MERT HIFZI

20

Bird & Bird ATMD LLP

19

Local

46

41

LORRAINE ANNE TAY SANDRA SEAH

20

Tan Kok Quan Partnership

20

Local

44

41

MARINA CHIN EDDEE NG

20

CNPLaw LLP

23

Local

38

41

LISA THENG

21

Tan Peng Chin LLC

21.5

Local

40

40

WONG LIANG KOK LIM JO SEE

22

Kelvin Chia Partnership

25

Local

26

26*

KELVIN CHIA

TOTAL

2,930

3,008

*Data retained from 2018

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

35

LEGAL INDUSTRY SURVEY

Singapore’s 20 most influential lawyers aged 40 and under in 2019

T

wenty new lawyers have emerged as some of the most promising in the industry for the sixth year of Singapore Business Review’s legal luminaries aged 40 and under in 2019. Singapore Business Review contacted 22 of the top 40 lawfirms, out of which 14 sent in their nominations. From these, we conducted an individual verification of the facts shared and screened the candidates based on their leadership position, the gravity of the cases they’ve led, as well as the value of the transactions they advised on. The lawyers in these list are arranged from youngest to oldest.

1

Guo Wei Siew, 31, Tan Kok Quan Partnership Guo Wei is a senior associate, practicing dispute resolution in courts and international arbitration for over five years. He covers a range of industries, including telecommunications, banking, oil & gas, utilities, shipping and retail. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) degree from the National University of Singapore in 2013 and joined Tan Kok Quan Partnership in 2017. He is experienced in insolvency and restructuring matters.

2 James Jordan, 32, HFW A senior associate with HFW, James brings over ten years of experience in advising clients from the aerospace and general insurance industries in the APAC region. His sspeciality relates to commercial litigation, regulatory matters, and drafting and review of commercial contracts in the aviation industry, where he has worked with some of the firm’s biggest clients. He is also admitted to practice in Hong Kong, England & Wales, and Ireland.

3 Jeremiah Huang, 32, RHTLaw TaylorWessing LLP: Considered as one of RHTLaw TaylorWessing LLP’s youngest partners, Jeremiah counsels 36

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

clients on capital markets, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and funds.

He also advises on post-IPO, corporate governance, and compliance issues. He graduated from Monash University in Australia with a Bachelor of Laws degree.

Singapore’s Association of Listed Companies and the Australian Alumni Singapore have appointed him as legal advisor.

4

Wincen Santoso, 32, DLA Piper Singapore A senior associate, Wincen is the only attorney in DLA Piper’s Singapore office who handles litigation and corporate deals. He has handled a diverse portfolio of international dispute cases and transactions across Asia, particularly on anti-trust, anti-corruption, international arbitration, acquisition and restructuring. He is a dual-qualified Indonesian and New York attorney and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has facilitated and spoken at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and the Law Society of Singapore.

5

Sharon Chong, 33, RHTLaw TaylorWessing LLP Sharon is a partner in the litigation and dispute resolution department, where she has handled various cases, including medical negligence, cross-border investments, aviation contracts and trust disputes. She particularly specialises in high net worth clients and complex commercial disputes in Southeast Asia and worldwide. She is one of the few solicitors in the island who have appeared in all levels of court, including international arbitration.

6

Shumin Lin, 34, Drew & Napier LLC Serving as a director in the company’s dispute resolution practice, Shumin is experienced in commercial disputes revolving around contractual issues, shareholders, banking and finance, company law and tort. She has acted

for firms in a variety of industries, including retail, hospitality, and shipping, and for venture capital firms, before local courts and international arbitrations. She is also one of the editors of Singapore Civil Procedure 2019.

7 Shaun Leong, 34, Eversheds Harry Elias LLP Recently appointed as a partner in the firm’s international arbitration and dispute management practice group, he has represented in high-value crossborder disputes, such as emergency interim relief, energy disputes, joint venture contract disputes and crisis management, class action and mass tort product liability claims. He was recently appointed to the Panel of Advisers of legal marketplace Legal Nodes, and in the cybersecurity firm Horangi as partner.

8

Timothy Lin, 34, Davinder Singh Chambers LLC A director at Davinder Singh Chambers, Timothy has advised clients on a broad range of civil and commercial litigation matters. The arbitrations cases he has been involved with are valued as much as a billion, and his experiences cover various major international rules and ad hoc proceedings. He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2012 and holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honours) degree from Nanyang Technological University.

9

Valmiki Nair, 34, Dentons Rodyk Valmiki practices in Dentons Rodyk’s corporate practice, where he has advised venture capital funds, startups and companies on investment deals. His specialisations cover venture tech, M&A, private equity, and corporate reorganisations and restructuring.

He has acted for organisations on cross-border restructuring involving entities in Asia, Europe and America. He also advises on family law and contract disputes in the firm’s community legal clinic.

10 Lionel Chan, 34, Oon & Bazul A partner in Oon & Bazul specialising in dispute resolution, Lionel is involved

LEGAL INDUSTRY SURVEY in commercial litigations and arbitrations concerning international trade, oil & gas, banking, company disputes, employment matters, tort and contracts.

He has participated in cases involving novel points of law. Although he mainly focuses on commercial disputes, he still works in community clinics and assists with the Law Society of Singapore’s Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (CLAS).

11 Shang Chai Chua, 35, Dentons Rodyk Shang Chai is a partner in Dentons Rodyk’s real estate group, where he has been working since 2010. He has been involved in matters involving collective sales, purchase, mortgage financing and development work and real estate financing work. He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2008 and was admitted as an advocate and solicitor in 2009. He has recently been named as an Acritas Star in 2019.

12 Melissa Thng, 35, Dentons Rodyk As part of the litigation and dispute resolution as well as arbitration practice groups, Melissa focuses on corporate and shareholder disputes, fraud, trusts and insolvency. She is experienced in such matters as international trade, insurance, shipping and aviation. Despite the adversarial nature of her primary practice, she is said to encourage amicable solutions to clients when possible.

She is also part of Law Society’s sports teams in netball and soccer.

13 Xiang Chew, 36, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP As a partner in restructuring and insolvency, Xiang has experience in dealing with commercial disputes, shareholder fights and contentious restructuring, and insolvency matters. The Legal 500 Asia Pacific has recognised him as a “highly rated name in the team.” He also regularly volunteers at a pro bono legal clinic. In addition, he co-authored

the Singapore chapter of the Chambers Global Practice Group on Insolvency in 2016.

14 Mui Hui Tan, 36, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP Mui Hui specialises in corporate finance and M&A, bringing her experience in SGX-ST listings and overseas exchanges, amongst others. She has handled M&A transactions involving shares and properties in Southeast Asia. She is also well-versed in secondary and pre-IPO fund raisings and has regularly advised on restructurings, takeovers and continuing listing obligations.

She was recognised as a notable practitioner by IFLR1000.

15 Benjamin Tay,

37, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP Benjamin’s main areas of practice include commercial acquisitions and divestments, particularly in data centres. He actively practices in office and industrial leases, especially those of coworking spaces. Some of the clients he has worked with include major multinational firms seeking counsel on Singapore’s real estate. He also has an interest in other alternative real estate classes and green growth areas in the industry.

16

Tjen Wee Wong, 37, Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow Tjen Wee specialises in commercial litigation as well as international arbitration, particularly in the construction, energy and mining sectors in Singapore and across Southeast Asia. He regularly advises on major infrastructure projects, such as in oil and gas facilities, power plants, transportation systems and commercial building projects. He often publishes case law updates, and he has recently been serving as the co-editor of the Baker McKenzie Construction Law Digest.

17 Sharon Tan, 37,

Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow Sharon has advised on real estate transactions, including the sale, purchase and

development of commercial, industrial and residential properties. She has acted in en-bloc projects, advised banks and borrowers, and acted for clients in the negotiation of leases.

She is also experienced in hotel management and hospitality contracts and transactions.

Furthermore, she is a member of the Singapore Academy of Law and the Law Society of Singapore.

18

Teng Sen Tan, 38, Drew & Napier LLC As the director in corporate and finance, Teng Sen’s practice includes M&A, private equity, joint ventures, corporate governance, general corporate, crisis management and securities related matters. He also advises on compliance issues with the SGX listing rules.

The Asia Pacific Legal 500 has recognised him as a recommended lawyer under the corporate/M&A category. He also volunteers to facilitate and conduct lessons for law students.

19

Andrew Zaw, 39, Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow A local principal in the firm’s finance & projects group, Andrew is an expert in project financing for projects in the oil and gas, power, mining and infrastructure sectors across Asia, Africa and Europe. Some of the clients he has represented include sponsors, lenders, and government entities. He is also a faculty member of the firm’s Banking & Finance University: Foundation Course. Furthermore, he is a member of The Law Society of New South Wales.

20 Jon Nair, 40, Drew & Napier LLC Jon Nair, a director under corporate & finance, has practiced on regional and domestic M&A, private equity & venture capital investments, joint ventures, corporate regulatory and compliance and restructuring. He has advised on many notable transactions in technology, financial institutions, real estate and infrastructure sectors, and for private equity investors, multinational corporations and family groups.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

37

CONSULTING FEATURE

ABeam Consulting: Driving digital transformation through dedicated analytics solutions

With a global team of experts, ABeam is helping clients leverage data for digital transformation.

robots for more than 200 companies,” Dr. Ong notes.

“Now, we are bringing those experiences to our clients worldwide and Singapore is one of the countries which we target. Our strength in robotic process automation lies in being flexible to adopt RPA in complicated business processes. Many tools now combine with workflow functions. Since the technology is still in the evolution phase, many new solutions are coming into the market. And most of the solutions are cloud-based,” he says.

(From left to right) Chris Whitaker, Managing Director of ABeam Lightstream Analytics; Tomokazu Yano, Managing Director of ABeam Singapore; and See Yew Ong, Principal/IES BU Leader

S

uccessfully leveraging data is at the core of digital transformation for any business. However, many enterprises are unable to implement digital processes due to a lack of sufficient support. This is why ABeam Consulting is committed to providing a dedicated team of consultants to help its clients leverage data for their businesses and drive digital transformation.

“When a company talks about digital transformation, it’s usually about empowering the current business model in a more digitalised way or starting a completely new business,” says Dr. See Yew Ong, Principal and GTM/IES BU Lead of ABeam. “However, one big challenge is the data they have. Sometimes companies run their business with multiple systems in different data formats. In those cases, the first step you will need to do is to cleanse and integrate those data so that they can be used to derive values from the new technologies,” he says.

ABeam Consulting Singapore has been present in the country for over 15 years and boasts over 150 professionals who have expertise and experience in various areas, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), robotic process automation (RPA), business intelligence analytics and cloud migration.

It also has experts in business consulting, project management office service, regulatory compliance and change management.

“We have a strong team of consultants who specialise in understanding the challenges around getting data out of siloed systems and into the hands of key decision makers,” Dr. Ong notes.

ABeam Consulting’s traditional business

38

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

domain is in ERP implementation and business process reengineering (BPR) among various industries. “Today everybody talks about digital transformation (DX). However, most companies are not clear with the goal after the transformation. We have been experiencing proofs of concept trying to use new technologies, including cloud, which end with just one single shot,” explains Dr. Ong. Cutting-edge solutions for global clients ABeam’s strategy for cloud-based solution is to find and collect new solutions across the world so that its clients no longer need to start from scratch in finding the solutions.

Its proprietary ABeam Cloud platform offers these selected solutions connected to ERP template solutions. Further, ABeam LightStream has partnerships with leading software vendors to leverage the latest technology in analytics.

ABeam Consulting is also at the forefront of bringing automation solutions to its clients across the globe. In Japan, for instance, the company was able to develop more than 5000 robots for more than 200 companies.

“Compared to Singapore where job is clearly defined, Japanese companies have much complicated roles & responsibility. To tackle with the situation, we had to be open minded to run the project and experienced many use cases in a very short time. Now we have experienced developing more than 5,000

ABeam LightStream Analytics With the addition of ABeam LightStream Analytics in April, the company is seeing new opportunities to leverage its capabilities and expertise. “We see a couple major trends today. Widespread cloud and commoditized AI are expanding the reach of analytics significantly within enterprises. And serverless applications and containers are exposing cheap processing power without heavy infrastructure capex costs. These two factors are allowing organisations, which previously couldn’t leverage advanced analytics due to skills and cost, to capitalize on data for their business,” explains Chris Whitaker, Managing Director of ABeam LightStream Analytics.

He adds that in the past, organisations needed an entire team of data scientists to do deep analytics against their big data sets.

These datasets were in heavy, expensive on-premise server clusters. The data science teams often worked separately, removed from the general business operations. “However, with the growth of the serverless cloud platforms, commoditized AI, and containerised computing, we see the traditional business analyst able to leverage far more advanced analytics without requiring the specialized data scientist skills,” Chris notes.

“The challenge today is that analytics is not truly used in most business decisions.

Decisions are still heavily made by intuition, values, or ingrained habits at the individual and group level. The value of moving to data-based decision making is we reduce the natural human bias in making choices,” Chris adds.

“We have a strong team of consultants who specialise in understanding the challenges around getting data out of siloed systems and into the hands of key decision makers.”

COUNTRY REPORT: NEW ZEALAND

Air New Zealand offers more flights to New Zealand New non-stop flight from Singapore to Christchurch and increased capacity of Auckland route.

Jenni Martin, Head of South and South East Asia at Air New Zealand

A

ir New Zealand, recently crowned Airline Jenni Martin, Air New Zealand’s Head of South of the Year, in conjunction with alliance and South East Asia, shared that Singapore is partner Singapore Airlines will increase amongst the top countries for visitor arrivals to flight capacity between Singapore and New New Zealand, with both leisure and corporate Zealand to meet the growing demand for travel demand showing significant increases in their services and provide more opportunities recent years. This posits an important growth for non-stop flights in addition to improving opportunity for the airline and New Zealand’s connectivity from India and South East Asia economy. markets.

Data from Statistics NZ revealed a 5.7 Additional flights between Singapore percent year-on-year increase in visitor arrivals and Auckland will add 35,000 additional from Singapore, in September 2019. During seats and increase the same time period, frequency from 12 to more than half of 14 services per week Singaporeans who “DATA FROM STATISTICS NZ visited New Zealand between the end of REVEALED A 5.7 PERCENT March to October were travelling on YEAR-ON-YEAR INCREASE holiday, indicating 2020, rounding up the overall number of IN VISITOR ARRIVALS FROM strong interest in the services the partners SINGAPORE, IN SEPTEMBER stunning attractions operate to 21 per and hospitality the 2019.” week. country has to offer.

Following the Besides covering renewal of its the Singapore-New partnership with Zealand route, Air Singapore Airlines for a further five years until New Zealand has also added a direct service March 2024, Air New Zealand launched its from Auckland to Seoul as of November 23, inaugural seasonal flight between Singapore 2019. The airline is also planning to boost its and Christchurch on December 1, 2019. The Bali seasonal service in 2020 by raising the seasonal service delivers increased frequency route’s capacity by 30,000 additional seats from three to five times a week and greater compared with the 2019 season. choice for South and South East Asia travellers Apart from an increase in flight frequency 40

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

and capacity, Air New Zealand is introducing world-class products and services to enhance customers’ onboard experience.

Their new and more spacious Economy product, Economy Stretch, is aimed at providing additional comfort for passengers travelling in the economy cabin. The improvement, which will be available on Air New Zealand’s widebody fleet from late 2020, features a roomy 35-inch pitch seat and amenities such as a premium headset and plush pillows.

Customers who choose to purchase an Economy Stretch seat can enjoy the Kiwi hospitality provided by dedicated crew members as well as authentic New Zealand wines and cuisine. They can also relish in gateto-gate entertainment and free inflight WiFi on selected aircrafts.

At present, Air New Zealand is reconfiguring its Boeing 777-200, 777-300 and 787-9 aircraft to accommodate an Economy Stretch zone at the front of the economy cabin. The new product consists of up to 42 spacious seats and is exclusive to long-haul flights.

Families, couples or those just wanting a bit of extra personal space can opt for the revolutionary Economy Skycouch™, which allows passengers to create a flat and flexible space for them to enjoy however they like.

They can choose the setup to suit their needs, with all three seats allocated to their booking and reserved just for passengers in the group. In addition, families can also go for the Skycouch Infant Harness, Belt and Pod, which allows infants to remain lying down throughout the cruise phase of the flight.

With these new enhancements and products, it is no surprise that Air New Zealand has been recognised as the Airline of the Year for the sixth time by airline safety and product review website AirlineRatings.com.

The award recognises the company’s initiatives in areas such as environmental leadership, customer experience and social contribution as well as their continued efforts in revolutionising the industry.

“2020 is a significant milestone for us as it marks Air New Zealand’s 80th year and we will focus our efforts on delivering new initiatives that are set to redefine and transform the travel experience,” Martin said.

“Moving forward, we will continue to assess new growth opportunities, particularly in Asia, as we seek to expand our presence across different markets,” she added.

Discover a better way to fly non-stop from Singapore to New Zealand Meet Pete the kiwi, our newest frequent flyer. He’s here to show you a better way to fly to New Zealand with Air New Zealand.

New Zealand is an unforgettable mix of breathtaking natural landscapes and vibrant cosmopolitan centres. Whether you’re looking to unwind with the help of our delicious food and wine, to shop, relax with nature or experience our culture. New Zealand has something for everyone. It’s all yours to enjoy from the moment you board your Air New Zealand flight.

Enjoy up to 2 daily non-stop flights from Singapore to Auckland* and our seasonal five times a week non-stop flight to Christchurch** which allows you to connect seamlessly to 20 domestic destinations within New Zealand. Members of Air New Zealand’s Airpoints™ and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer programmes can earn and redeem Airpoints and KrisFlyer Miles on both Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines flights between Singapore and New Zealand.

SINGAPORE

AUCKLAND

SINGAPORE

Flight No.

Departure

Arrival

Frequency

Flight No.

Departure

Arrival

Frequency

NZ281 / NZ3281 NZ283*

08�45 18�40

23�35 09�30 (+1)

Daily Daily

NZ282 / NZ3282 NZ284*

01�20 11�05

06�45 16�30

Daily Daily

Flight No.

Departure

Arrival

Frequency

Flight No.

Departure

Arrival

Frequency

NZ295**

18�40

09�30 (+1)

2, 4, 5, 6, 7

NZ286**

11�00

16�25

2, 4, 5, 6, 7

SINGAPORE

CHRISTCHURCH

SINGAPORE

* Air New Zealand operates NZ283 and NZ284 daily, and from the 29 March 2020 to 24 October 2020 we will also operate the daily service of NZ281 and NZ282. ** Air New Zealand will operate a five times weekly seasonal service between Singapore and Christchurch from now to 22 February 2020.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

41

CO-PUBLISHED COPORATE PROFILE

MHC Asia Group believes better health can be created Their proprietary platform empowers corporates to take control of their organisational health and charges individuals to be their own health crusader.

T

heir proprietary platform empowers corporates to take control of their organisational health and charges individuals to be their own health crusader.

Recent headlines in Singapore have been dominated by rising healthcare costs – some insurers expect medical inflation across the island to reach 10% in 2019, higher than the 8% global average, naturally sending companies scrambling to seek new ways to prioritise cost containment. However, health tech company MHC Asia Group has a different take on the issue, believing that cost containment is but a subset of an outcome.

This mindset has led to MHC pioneering the development of an Organisational Health Index (or OHI for short) over the past year, granting valuable data insights to their customers and empowering them to surgically target health pain points.

MHC Integrated Platform

The OHI is but one of many tools in MHC’s integrated platform, centred on the idea of Discovery, Ownership and Intervention. It is designed to help engage customers along every step of the way towards MHC’s goal of creating “better health”—a holistic concept of improving one’s overall wellness. This in 42

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

turn enables greater savings for organisations and individuals in the long run, by targeting the root causes of illnesses and thus healthcare costs.

Eric Koh, CEO of MHC Asia Group, shared passionately, “Better Health is what we believe in, and it can be achieved. At MHC, we have created a platform that fuses ownership, appropriate treatments and iterative care pathways for every individual. We don’t

the decades of experience MHC has in the healthcare industry, with innovation and collaboration as the essentials. Along with a “quadruple win” mindset (for corporates, individuals, healthcare providers and partners), MHC has served customers ranging from SMEs to MNCs across various industries, including major insurers in Singapore.

Dr Yenna Tasia, Head of Partnerships at MHC Asia Group, said “Using the data curated from OHI, we collaborate with HRs to co-develop targeted Active Intervention Programme (AIP) to empower employees to create better health.

Elaborating from her experience, “A Straits Times report shows that 1 in 3 Singaporeans suffer from sleep apnea, but most people are unaware of what this condition is, let alone the health risks it possesses. Recently, we analysed the OHI of a company and identified

“At MHC, we have created a platform that fuses ownership, appropriate treatments and iterative care pathways for every individual. Better Health is what we believe in, and it can be achieved.” believe in transactional care. Our health intelligence platform tracks and analyses data from the OHI to generate customised recommendations, enabling us to create a targeted environment that amplifies health

and wellness.”

“The end objective is with Better Health, corporate healthcare costs will be contained!

It’s a win for everyone,” he finished.

Journey Towards Better Health This proprietary platform is built upon

individuals at a high risk of sleep apnea. It only after running these individuals through our screening program and home sleep tests, did they come to learn about this condition that had been afflicting them.”

“As a follow-up, we organised workplace education sessions on sleep apnea and its health risks, such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiac problems. With education, we aim to inspire individuals to take ownership of their current condition. Finally, working closely with HR, we launched a gamified weight management active intervention program to tackle one of the key risk factors of sleep apnea, obesity.

“It was heartening to see that once our customers realised that the gravity of their situation, they were energized to take charge of their own health and do something about it—true evidence that our Discovery, Ownership and Intervention model is effective in helping us deliver our goal of creating Better Health for all,” the Dr Yenna concluded emphatically. “It’s a great feeling to know that MHC is positively impacting lives and we look forward to more opportunities ahead to do the same.”

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EVENT COVERAGE: HOTTEST STARTUPS PANEL BRIEFING

Unveiling the best and worst of Singapore’s startup ecosystem Funding for startups under the cybersecurity, logistics and supply chain scenes are rising, driven by the building hype around fintech, ecommerce and foodtech, according to panels from SBR’s Hottest Startups panel briefing.

S

tartup founders, investors, and venture capitalists (VC) discussed the hottest sectors, startup failures, and the development of a unicorn for Singapore Business Review’s annual Hottest Startups panel briefing. Over 130 senior executives gathered to hear the views of Singapore’s hottest startups of 2019 along with venture capitalists to discuss the scene.

One of the biggest challenges startups face in Singapore is encouraging seasoned executives to risk ditching their corporate careers for their own businesses.

Making the jump from a 9-5 corporate job to founding a startup is a risk not many are willing to take. In fact, Christina Teo, co-founder and CEO of healthtech startup UCARE.AI, admits that leaving her more than two-decade career in private equity behind was the most humbling experience she ever had. Now that she’s on the other side of the fence, Teo reveals being an entrepreneur takes a lot of personal work in terms of looking for investors. She says she had to rely a lot on her family and friends when the startup was just starting out.

Teo said that it was the support of her ex-boss and mentor, Peter Lim, that opened a lot of doors for the startup.

“I guess one thing that we see individuals have that other VC or traditional VCs do not have is time. Individuals 44

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

We hit hard individuals who we think are special for some reason, or they have, you know, a specific skill set or a specific domain experience that will make them incredible founders.

have their personal time, they have their personal interest, whether the investment is for financial reasons, or it could be a hobby or assets,” she says.

“Having access to them and getting their personal time to be involved in brainstorming and opening doors” were instrumental in getting UCARE.AI early adopters in health tech, food tech, and insurtech, she added.

“In our first use case, our client was Parkway Pantai and we did the cost prediction for them throughout Singapore last year, and we’re seeing a lot of these early adopters of our products and services through personal networks by investors.”

Andy Li, founder and CEO of fintech firm Silot, took a similar risk jumping into the startup game. He stated that through his firm’s AI decision-making engine, he is providing banks financial solutions to underserved clients in the region.

Doralyn Chan, manager of funding at Entrepreneur First, says the funding firm has been able to convince “quite a few” promising people to quit their corporate jobs and start their own companies, recognising the advantage of bringing in people that they know their industry’s pain points and having established network at their disposal.

“We hit hard individuals who we think are special for

EVENT COVERAGE: HOTTEST STARTUPS PANEL BRIEFING some reason, or they have, you know, a specific skill set or a specific domain experience that will make them incredible founders,” she says.

“If you come from an advertising background or logistics background, we welcome you with open arms because we think that as someone who has been in that corporate industry for a whilst you possess a very special understanding of the market,” Chan continued.

Follow the money Looking for funding, and the right funder, is a huge challenge for any startup founder. For Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind group, selecting investors with good track records is as important as the amount of money you’ll be able to raise. They was able to raise almost US$15m from several investors in its series A funding, led by Japanese firm JAFCO. “They are very strong in Japan and Asia. They invested in so many successful startups which are listed in Tokyo, the US, and Hong Kong as well.” Sogo said.

Teo also added that getting good legal advice is invaluable for startups. “As a small company in the early stage, when you go for legal advice and your client is a huge giant like Parkway or Great Eastern, more often than not most lawyers would have chosen to represent your counterparty and not the startup, because they do have a lot of repeat business. So having Wong Partnership on our team gives us access to very good legal advice,” she says.

Alan Jiang, co-founder and CEO of Asia’s largest e-scooter company Beam, explains that government regulations can hinder a startup’s growth despite a huge boost in initial funding. Although based in Singapore, Beam’s biggest markets are overseas. They have not yet debuted their e-scooter services in the Lion City yet because of prohibitive regulations. “Our biggest markets are Korea, Australia and Malaysia and we’re in six countries in Asia right now,” Jiang said.

For its second round of funding, Jiang shared that they will look for strategic investors who can be local allies in the countries they’re expanding in. “For a business with a large footprint, it’s important to have both allies in every country we go to. And some of the stuff that we do is we go to all the countries that we intend to launch in and we say, ‘Hey, who are the most well connected most strategic sequential people that would get on board and how do we get them to participate in the round that is led by financial investors?’”

Jiang says.

Sustained growth of fintech and e-commerce In terms of funding, $13.4b has been poured into Singapore’s startups between January-September 2019, where $1b went to fintech. Amanda Chen, innovation associate for Rainmaking Innovation, warns that the fintech and e-commerce industries are quickly getting saturated.

“In this region, for many years, there has been an unbanked population for the longest time. Drawing parallels from the west, because all these fintech and e-commerce companies are so successful, individual investors are drawing that same model to apply to this part of the world,” Chen says.

A lot of [fintech firms] today do leverage heavily on financial transaction data.

Edmas Neo, CEO of Action Committee for Entrepreneurship, agrees with Chen’s assessment. “It’s very difficult to find new solutions or problems to solve within the space,” Neo says. But Ling Min Hoon, vice president of Reefknot Investments, says he remains optimistic about the growth of the fintech and e-commerce industries as the supply chain industry is still catching up in terms of digital transformation. “B2C is kind of always on the forefront, always leading tech adoption. In a similar fashion, going to see that playing out in the B2B space as well, where enterprises are also rapidly digitising their supply chain,” he says.

The next big thing Although e-commerce and fintech are getting most of the funding right now, many industries are going under the radar. “For example, in the maritime industry, we see a lot of startups are coming up to solve some of the big pain points that a lot of companies see,” Chen says.

Igloohome’s marketing director Shermaine Koh stated that fintech and e-commerce companies have opened up opportunities for cyber security firms. Neo added that there will be a lot of investment going into debt areas with the rise of e-commerce.

Hoon also noted that digital transformation in the supply chain and logistics industry makes it ripe for disruption. Hoon points out that the volatility of the macro economic environment requires supply chain companies to be more dynamic and flexible.

“We see more businesses leveraging technology to optimise their supply chains, not only just to reduce costs and maintain operational efficiency, but also to find ways to grow the top line by perhaps being able to better focus, better predict, better capture the kind of new demand points that are emerging as the supply chains are moving,” Hoon says.

Although still in its nascent stage, Hoon predicts that supply chain data will also be a factor in the fintech industry.

“A lot of [fintech firms] today do leverage heavily on financial transaction data. We think perhaps, supply chain data is becoming useful or handy in this instance,” he says.

“They start from the points of having a purchase orders invoices, but not so much tracking the matching process.”

AnyMind Group CEO Kosuke Sogo at Panel Session 1: Funding sources

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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EVENT COVERAGE: HOTTEST STARTUPS PANEL BRIEFING

Panel Session 3: The food revolution: Reshaping the food ecosystem

“Imagine if you had visibility over your supply chain milestones and movements, from upstream production to insurance, shipping to downstream distribution. These could potentially serve as a valuable data point for funders, big banks, and non-banks to kind of be able to undertake that to a risk assessment, especially on SMEs or smaller time distributors who do not have a strong financial information to begin with,” Hoon adds.

Koh stated that logistics startups are getting a lot of funding right now and might be the next big thing. Hoon agrees that many startups are potentially trying to solve the transportation piece. “The sweet spot is to be able to elevate data orchestration across multiple modes of past multiple geographies, especially as we think about the global flows that will be addressing more kind of key pain point it is a big one dynamic itself,” she says.

Meanwhile, Karissa Adelaide, associate of Venturra Discovery, says the venture capital firm is looking to invest in direct-to-consumer businesses right now. Adelaide explains that whilst Venturra Discovery’s portfolio includes Zilingo, Shopback, and Fave, there is a saturation in the market. She also says that direct-to-consumer brands are a fresh way to introduce something new, particularly in terms of buying experience.

“For example, instead of going to a convenience store to get razors, you’re able to get it in a much more convenient way,” Adelaide says. “Direct-to-consumer brands can improve the experience of buying a product. Customers also don’t have to go through retailers. It also allows consumers to have better products and better prices.”

Food revolution Another hot startup vertical right now is the food industry.

Eugene Wong, founder and managing director of Sirius Venture Capital, says they foresaw the food tech revolution coming as early as four years ago and will continue to be huge in the coming years.

Nigel Teh, programme manager at Rainmaking Innovation, agrees that food is a “very highly solid industry.”

In fact, Teh says, there are a lot of unmet needs that are currently surfacing. “We think that by meeting those unmet needs today that we can potentially create the next big food system,” he says.

For Neeraj Sundarajoo, co-founder and CEO of 46

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Direct-toconsumer brands can improve the experience of buying a product.

Zeemart, providing value to consumes means more than just providing technology. Sundarajoo says his company’s main goal is to bring the cost of goods down for buyers and suppliers. He points out that people are eating out more in developing countries. “In fact, you eat out because food has become so much more accessible. Homes are becoming a lot smaller, so less and less food preparation at home,” he says.

“We look at how we can finance buyers and suppliers within the industry in a more efficient way. We look at how we can aggregate and consolidate distribution across supply chain,” Sundarajoo says.

He also says that Zeemart helps food businesses to limit food wastage and in turn maximise profits. “The first thing that we do is create visibility, and real time data and analytics around your purchase patterns and behaviour. With that data and information, it puts you in a better position to understand food wastage, to understand the cost of goods, to also understand how rises have increased,” Sundarajoo says. “So with that kind of visibility, chefs are a little bit more empowered to decide what they should drive as promotion because if you bought something at a substantially lower price, then that’s what you should definitely be promoting in the restaurant because that will give you better margins.”

Matthew Godfrey, CEO of Nutrition Innovation, points out that foodtech startups should look at solving global problems like obesity and diabetes. He explains that Nutrition Innovation tries to address this by licensing technology to the global sugar and food industry to provide sugar adoption, sugar replacement, and healthy specifications of natural sugar and sugar cane around the world. “If we don’t solve that problem fast, the issue that we have now will actually double over the next few years as well,” he says. “It’s a massive issue, which is on the table of every boardroom with every food and beverage company around the world. And it’s an urgent solution the world needs and that’s why we believe we’re an important part of the global food supply chain.”

For Nesh Sooriyan, entrepreneur in residence at Accelerating Asia, the foodtech revolution will allow countries to be independent food producers. He explains that eco-gardens and hydrophonics reduce dependency on shared resources.

“The technology changes that we see allow us to decouple from the constraints that we’ve seen in land, labor, and capital, to allow nations like Singapore to produce their food without the dependency on international trade that we have seen in previous years,” Sooriyan says. “When in the next couple of years, we will consume 40-50% more food on this planet than we produce, it will place more and more constraints on the shared resources that we will need to survive.”

Christian Cadeo, managing partner of Big Idea Ventures, believes consumers will eventually prefer plant-based food products over animal-derived products because they will be more inexpensive, an industry that will be worth US$3t.

Learning from mistakes Yau Teng Yan, chief medical officer of Holmusk, says founders must set realistic expectations when building

EVENT COVERAGE: HOTTEST STARTUPS PANEL BRIEFING their businesses. Oftentimes, government regulations slow down instead of help the progress of startups. For Holmusk, a health tech and data science company that is building the world’s largest real world evidence platform for new science, progress was more difficult to attain because of “a lot regulatory barriers.”

“It takes a lot of effort for them to realize a new way of treating or dealing with patients,” he says. “I think you need to have an understanding and realistic expectations of how long it takes to build a good business in this space and up because a lot of the revenue from health tech actually does come from the B2B space.”

Meanwhile, Joeri Gianotten, a partner at AccelerAsia stresses the need for startups to quickly learn from mistakes.

“If you don’t make any failures, you will never grow because you will not learn,” Gianotten says. “You want to find it quick so that you can adjust it so that you don’t really go to the ground.”

Zeemart’s co-founder and chief product officer Keith Tan echoed the sentiment, mentioning that a lot of a small startups’ failures are because of the founders’ internal squabbling and mistakes. “Creating a startup, it’s like jumping off a cliff or creating the airplane, right? So you’re really figuring things out along the way, you need to have a strong team that trusts each other,” he explained.

But for Jagmohan Garg, associate vice president of Oxford Caps, a startup’s success can simply come down to having enough demand for the company’s value proposition.

“If there is not enough demand for the proposition, of course, you’re going to fail. So before launching the product, before figuring out what’s the value proposition, you should also gauge the right demand that they want,” he says.

Finding the market fit Wayne Soh, investment director of Plug and Play, says a startup’s success “all boils down to product market fit.” “I think you’d really look at unit economics and also the drive in the venture capital money into that space,” he says.

Ting Yan Leck, Partner at Trive Ventures, says not enough interest from the market is one sign of failure. “If you’re a B2B company, if you’re a B2C, you can’t even get a community going, then something’s very weird. You don’t necessarily have to have the product ready. You can always do a concierge model just to figure out if it exists. But if you can’t even figure that out, then it’s tough.”

Keeping focused Ryan Chew, managing partner of Tribe Accelerator, says first-time founders should focus on their “Northstar metrics.” Unless the startup is an influencer business, founders should identify which metrics are actually contributing to a startup’s bottom line. “They’re Northstar metrics that will lead them directly to revenue or profit, profitable business. Vanity metrics is how many likes do I have on Facebook?” he explains. “But more often than not, it doesn’t directly contribute to profit. For a lot of first time founders’, it is not easy to identify what a North Star metrics that they should be focusing on.”

Gianotten also warns against scaling too fast just because new investors come in. He says founders should always

If there is not enough demand for the proposition, of course, you’re going to fail.

follow their original goals despite the influx of funding from investors. “The objectives are not always aligned between a founder and an investor because as a founder, you have one company, as an investor, you have multiple companies.”

He also said some founders focus on getting more funding instead of maintaining cash flow. “Nowadays, even if you don’t get funded, even if you have enough cash flow, you can still sustain,” Gianotten says.

What makes a unicorn? e-commerce unicorn Trax’s head of strategy Shavit Clein, stated that what sets unicorn founders apart from founders of smaller startups is having the psychology of not taking ‘no’ for an answer. “Ultimately, when you’re trying to do something big, it takes some real drive that comes from within, which is what really sets us apart.”

But apart from being just a big company, Devina Halim, an associate at East Ventures, noted that having more unicorns will increase Singapore’s attractiveness to the investors’ eyes. East Ventures expects 13 of its portfolio companies will emerge as unicorns in the coming years.

With this, she projected that the emergence of unicorns will likely boost Southeast Asia’s M&A trade sales and secondary sales, as they are likely to acquire early-stage startups to strengthen their platform and its market reach.

However, Quest Ventures’ venture partner Russ Neu commented that investors should also be mindful of the smaller startups as well. “A lot of people are doing quite well in terms of SMEs and Singapore’s SME status will be about US$15m. In terms of traction, that should be also our focus and grow a lot of this so that they can also be a unicorn eventually.”

Innovation and adaptability Teo, who used to work as a junior analyst for Jack Ma in Alibaba, says making your startup adaptable is key to longterm success. Betting on a potential unicorn can end up becoming an “entirely different animal altogether.”

“If you look at the business plan of Alibaba, it is totally different from what it is today. And nobody ever imagined what it would become,” she says.

“Looking back to some of the changes that I’ve made, as an investor would-be, am I investing in the jockey or am I investing in the horse? Over the last few years since the founding of UCARE.AI, I saw that the horse makes the biggest difference because when you’re betting on a market,” Teo explains. “But it could be a Trojan horse for all.

At the end of the day, it’s really about the present and how adaptable this person is going to be.”

That is why, Teo says, innovation and adaptability are highly valuable skillsets in startups. “Theoretically, everything sounds fine, but when you’re on the ground you are in the trenches. It’s your cognitive ability, your ability to adapt and constantly innovate and adapting, that is a whole skill set that you’re looking for,” she says.

Tan reminds aspiring founders to make sure that their startup is actually trying to solve a problem. “In a lot of startups, we see solutions looking for a problem, as opposed to problems looking for a solution,” Tan says.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

47

AWARDS COVERAGE: MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE AWARDS

Find out who won at this year’s SBR Management Excellence Awards

O

ver 150 corporate leaders across industries graced the event, with SBR handing out 28 awards.

Singapore Business Review successfully recognised outstanding executives and firms at the SBR Management Excellence Awards 2019 held at Conrad Centennial Singapore on 26 November, gathering over 150 corporate leaders.

On its fifth year, the SBR Management Excellence Awards awarded trailblazing individuals and teams whose initiatives have brought tangible business gains for their company’s operations.

This year’s winners were judged by an elite panel that includes Henry Tan, Group CEO & Chief Innovation Officer, NEXIA TS; David Chew, Executive Director, Risk Advisory at Deloitte Southeast Asia; Lim Wei Wei, Partner and Practice Leader, Governance and Risk at Baker Tilly TFW; Yang Eu Jin, Partner and Co Head of Capital Markets Practice at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP; and Pardeep Singh Khosa, Director of Dispute Resolution at Davinder Singh Chambers LLC. One of the notable attendees at this year’s awards was Felix Loh Chee Wai, CEO of Gardens by the Bay, who claimed the Executive of the Year for Hospitality and Leisure for his non-stop efforts in recreating the iconic People’s Garden for tourists, locals and beneficiaries.

TEAM OF THE YEAR Business Services - Everise Corporate Team, Everise Financial Services - HLAS EXCO, HL Assurance Pte Ltd Hospitality & Leisure - Sales & Marketing Team, Pan Pacific Hotels Group Life Insurance - Digital for Business, The Great Eastern Life Assurance Co Ltd Technology - Marketing Team, PALO IT Singapore EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT OF THE YEAR TECHNOLOGY - PEOPLE EXPERIENCE TEAM , PALO IT SINGAPORE

AntWorks

Centre for Executive Education

S4 Capital

Singapore Business Review congratulates the following winners: EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR

Advertising - Michel de Rijk, CEO, S4 Capital Business Services - Sudhir Agarwal, CEO, Everise Consulting - Ewen Plougastel, Managing Director, Accenture Digital Education - Delane Lim, Polygon Asia & FutuReady Singapore Financial Services - Kelvin Lim Choong Kiat, CEO, HL Assurance Pte Ltd Financial Technology - Andrew Ong, Regional Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Flywire Food & Beverage - Moe Ibrahim, Founder and CEO, Deelish Brands Pte Ltd Health Products & Services - Brad Robinson, CEO, Ritual Gym Hospitality & Leisure - Felix Loh Chee Wai, CEO, Gardens by the Bay Human Resources - Professor Sattar Bawany, CEO, Centre for Executive Education IT Services - Stephan Neumeier, APAC Managing Director, Kaspersky Logistics - Jonathan Savoir, CEO, Quincus Pte. Ltd. Pharmaceuticals - Raman Singh , CEO, Mundipharma Property Management Services - Poon Da Qian, CEO, BUTLERINSUITS PTE LTD Talent Development and Engagement - Margaret Heng, CEO, SHATEC Technology - Shashank Dixit, CEO, Deskera Transportation - Michael Chiay, Head of APAC, TBR Global Chauffeuring Travel Services - Nicholas Lim, Managing Director, The Travel Corporation Utilities - Chang Sau Sheong, CEO, SP Digital

Deelish Brands Pte Ltd

Everise

INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR Financial Services - Claudine Heng, Head of Customer Strategy & Direct Marketing, HL Assurance Pte Ltd Packaging - Ramadas Senthil Kumar, Founder and CTO, Tera-Barrier Films Pte Ltd Technology - Asheesh Mehra, Co-Founder and Group CEO, AntWorks Pte Ltd 48

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

PALO IT

Flywire

HL Assurance Pte Ltd

Gardens by the Bay

Kaspersky

Mundipharma

Polygon Asia and Futuready Singapore

SP Digital

Tera-Barrier Films Pte Ltd

SHATEC

The Travel Corporation

Pan Pacific Hotels Group

Ritual Gym

TBR Global Chauffeuring

The Great Eastern Life SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

49

AWARDS COVERAGE: ASIAN EXPORT AWARDS

The region’s finest exporters celebrate at The Asian Export Awards

T

he event ran alongside the third Made in Singapore and Designed in Singapore Awards.

Singapore Business Review successfully ended The Asian Exports Awards with a packed venue at Shangri-La Hotel Singapore on 28 November, gathering over 100 guests.

On its second year, the awards event honoured products and services that have significantly enhanced business in the regional export scene.

The event was supported by the Asia Business Trade Association and Asian Trade Centre, the International Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Exporters’ Association, the Singapore Chamber of Commerce (Hong Kong), and the Thai Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s winners were judged by an elite panel that includes Chong Cheng Yuan, Partner & Industry Lead, Industrial Manufacturing at RSM; James Elsom, Executive Director, Corporate Finance Advisory at Deloitte Asia Pacific; and Cheng Soon Keong, Director, Corporate Advisory Services at BDO LLP. The event coincides with the third year of the SBR Made in Singapore Awards and Designed in Singapore Awards which respectively hails products manufactured and conceptualised in Singapore.

Winners were judged by Richard Loi, Partner, SEA Consumer & Industrial Products Industry Audit & Assurance Leader at Deloitte & Touche LLP; Toh Kim Teck, Assurance Partner at Foo Kon Tan LLP; Henry Tan, Managing Director at Nexia TS; and Joshua Ong, Managing Partner at Baker Tilly.

AEA Trophies

Heinz ASEAN Pte. Ltd

Freedom Foods Group

Singapore Business Review congratulates the following winners: The Asian Export Awards - Large Corporate Heinz ASEAN Pte. Ltd. - Condiments Freedom Foods Group - Milk Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company - Processed Food Tru Blu Beverages Pty Ltd - Soda The Asian Export Awards - Local Champion YanYan International (Phils.), Inc. - Chips Munchy’s - Biscuit Kobe Electronics Material (Thailand) Co., Ltd. - Materials and Construction

Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company

Made in Singapore Awards Osteopore International Pte Ltd - Medical Aqua-Terra Oilfield Equipment & Services Pte Ltd - Oil & Gas Designed in Singapore Awards Ying The Label - Apparel Field Catering & Supplies Pte Ltd - Beverage Blu5 View Pte Ltd - Computer Hardware Kerry Ingredients (S) Pte Ltd - Food RenewFibre Asia Pte Ltd - Materials & Construction 50

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Tru Blu Beverages Pty Ltd

YANYAN INTERNATIONAL (PHILS.), INC.

Munchys

Kobe Electronics Material (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

Osteopore International Pte Ltd

Aqua-Terra Oilfield Equipment & Services Pte Ltd

Field Catering & Supplies Pte Ltd

Kerry Ingredients (S) Pte Ltd

Blu5 View Pte Ltd

Ying the Label

RenewFibre Asia Pte Ltd SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

51

AWARDS COVERAGE: MALAYSIA IBA & TEA

Find out who won at the first Malaysia International Business Awards and Technology Excellence Awards

O

ver 130 guests from the most innovative companies in Malaysia graced the inaugural event.

The most outstanding international companies and startups were recognised at the inaugural Malaysia International Business Awards and Technology Excellence Awards held at Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on 3 December.

The Technology Excellence Awards honoured enterprises that have remarkably contributed to transforming industries through technology, whilst the International Business Awards lauded global companies that have found a solid foothold in Malaysia.

Nominees for the Malaysia International Business Awards were judged

by Yee Wing Peng, Malaysia Managing Partner and SEA Chinese Services Group Leader at Deloitte; Esther Yap, Partner, Audit at Mazars; Dato’ Robert Teo, Chairman at RSM Malaysia; Dr T Y Teoh, Country Managing Partner at ShineWing TY Teoh; Chan Siew Mei, Partner and Head of Advisory at KPMG; and Andrew Heng, Group Managing Partner at Baker Tilly Malaysia.

An elite panel of judges also graced the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards, including Alvin SH Gan, Executive Director, Partner, Head of IT-enabled Transformation (ITeT) at KPMG Malaysia; Yoon Hoong Hoh, Partner, ASEAN Digital Assurance Leader, Head of Diversified Technology and Communications Group at Ernst & Young; Justin Ong, Partner and FSI Financial and Regulatory Risk Leader at Deloitte Asia Pacific; and Hari Iyer, Executive Director, Advisory at BDO Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore Business Review congratulates the following winners:

CLOUD - IT SERVICES Enfrasys Consulting GAMING - MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT Game Taiko Sdn Bhd DIGITAL - BUSINESS SERVICES Involve Asia Technologies Sdn Bhd DIGITAL - IT SERVICES Ledgit Viable Sdn Bhd DIGITAL - REAL ESTATE LinkZZapp Group Sdn Bhd AI - DIVERSIFIED SERVICES Loosely Coupled Technologies HARDWARE - ELECTRONIC MANUFACTURING Lumileds FINTECH - FINANCIAL SERVICES Merchantrade Asia Sdn Bhd AUGMENTED & VIRTUAL REALITY - AUTOMOTIVE SERVICES Ministry XR MOBILE - TELECOMMUNICATIONS Ministry XR ANALYTICS - ADVERTISING Moving Walls ROBOTICS - ENGINEERING MY CONCEPTUAL ROBOTICS SDN BHD DIGITAL - FINANCIAL SERVICES MyAngkasa AzZahra Sdn Bhd FINTECH - TRADING PLATFORM Pentajeu Sdn Bhd CYBERSECURITY - IT SERVICES Reg.Asia INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY - IT SERVICES ServerFreak Technologies Sdn Bhd DIGITAL - ENERGY Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn Bhd E-COMMERCE - BUSINESS SERVICES SOCOE SDN BHD DIGITAL - UTILITIES STRATO SOLUTIONS SDN BHD AI - TELECOMMUNICATIONS Telekom Research & Development Sdn Bhd

MALAYSIA INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AWARDS

IOT - UTILITIES Telekom Research & Development Sdn Bhd RSA - Cyber Security Texas Instruments Electronics Malaysia Sdn Bhd - Electronic Manufacturing IOT - EDUCATION OpenWay - Financial Services Viewsonic International Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. Roche (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd - Pharmaceuticals ASSA ABLOY ASEAN - Technology CONNECTIVITY - TELECOMMUNICATIONS YTL Communications MALAYSIA TECHNOLOGY EXCELLENCE AWARDS MOBILE - BANKING Affin Bank Berhad WEB SERVICES - HUMAN RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY Agensi Pekerjaan Ajobthing Sdn Bhd ROBOTICS - AGRICULTURE Arinaa Kambyan Berhad AI - BUSINESS SERVICES Consider iProspect Sdn Bhd DIGITAL - ADVERTISING Consider iProspect Sdn Bhd 52

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

RSA

Texas Instruments Electronics Malaysia Sdn

OpenWay

Roche Malaysia Sdn Bhd

ASSA ABLOY ASEAN

Affin Bank

Ledgit Viable

Consider iProspect Sdn Bhd

LinkZZapp Group SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020 53

AWARDS COVERAGE: MALAYSIA IBA & TEA

Lumileds

Merchantrade Asia

ServerFreak Technologies Sdn Bhd

MyAngkasa AzZahra

Shell Malaysia

Strato Solutions

SOCOE

Telekom Research and Development

ViewSonic International Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. 54

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YTL Communications

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FOOD & BEVERAGE

Deelish Brands is reshaping the Halal F&B scene The shift in consumer’s demand for fresh and ‘better’ food is more evident than ever.

C

arving a space in the highly competitive food and beverage industry, Moe Ibrahim steers his restaurant management company, Deelish Brands, in plugging the market gap for exciting fast-casual and trendy Halal restaurant concepts in Southeast Asia.

As the CEO and Founder of Deelish Brands, Moe Ibrahim aims to cater to the changing preferences and lifestyles of the rising middle-class, Halal consumer base.

The Company was founded in 2017 and it currently holds the master franchise rights for Fatburger, Buffalo’s Express and Blimpie. They are also working on several in-house brands currently to diversify their offerings. Apart from serving the large and growing Halal community in Southeast Asia, Mr Ibrahim drew inspiration from his American counterparts and the concept of fresh, cooked-to-order and customisable meals. In 2018, he launched his pioneer project—Fatburger—which has since been the leading fast-casual, Halal burger chain in Singapore.

“In Singapore, there is a lack of fast casual restaurant brands. In addition, there is a lack of interesting halal concepts. These are both huge markets that are underserved. Deelish Brands bridges both by taking trendy fast-casual restaurant brands, adapting the menu for the halal consumer, and launching them in Southeast Asia. This is what makes us

Moe Ibrahim, CEO of Deelish Brands, receiving the Executive of the Year for Food & Beverage

different,” he said.

The serial entrepreneur thinks that being at the forefront of innovation is the key in succeeding in this competitive market. They recently launched their first Fatburger virtual kitchen at Tampines Food Co. in a bid to meet the needs of a growing delivery culture. Aiming high with his “big and audacious goals” which is to be the “largest halal restaurant management company in Asia by 2030”, he also recognises that customers are the priority in this business. “Customers has always been the centre of what we do here

“Customers has always been the centre of what we do here in Deelish Brands.” in Deelish Brands”, he explained.

Tapping on the value of technology in a successful business, Mr Ibrahim plans to introduce his own technological solutions to the F&B industry in the years ahead. At present, challenges remain in manpower and scheduling, which Deelish Brands aims to solve through an innovative solution with potential for industry-wide adoption.

The young, trailblazing industry leader not only embraces disruptive technology and innovation that can ante up team productivity levels, he is also not afraid of getting down to the grind. Mr Ibrahim spent several months in Los Angeles, California, where he went through intensive hands-on training at one of the

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busiest Fatburger restaurant in Hollywood, therefore familiarising himself with the restaurant business. From back-of-house prep work to front-of-house cashier and cleaning, he did it all. These essential skills were also what he brought back to Singapore and instilled in his stellar homegrown team.

Having won several awards over the years for his finance and hospitality excellence, Mr Ibrahim clinched his first food and beverage award as the Executive of the Year at the 2019 Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards. He said that he is “flattered” and explained, “As a leader, my most important job is to set the right vision and message for the business, and I measure my success in my team executing well and more importantly believing in a shared vision so that it becomes a reality for everybody.”

When asked about his future plans, Mr Ibrahim said “the goal is to continue to open new restaurants and put out exceptional and trendy food and expand the halal choices in Southeast Asia.”

With Mr Ibrahim’s strategic foresight and leadership, upcoming blueprints for Deelish Brands include introducing America’s oldest sandwich brand, Blimpie (BlimpieSG.com), to the local market, while in 2020, the company intends to launch a trendy fast-casual pizza brand and an in-house brand, demonstrating the momentum of its innovations.

With a clear vision and strategic plan for Deelish Brands, he now looks forward to greater opportunities in Singapore’s consistently thriving F&B industry.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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FINANCIAL SERVICES

HL Assurance: First insurer with NCD and Immediate Medical Claims The company also introduced Singapore’s first hybrid critical illness product on the market.

took home the Innovator of the Year award for the pivotal role she played in developing the mentioned products.

The award recognises businesses whose creative, out-of-the-box approach has resulted in excellent performance.

HL Assurance is no stranger to innovation, having previously rolled out Singapore’s first mobile phone insurance plan and becoming the first insurer to support QR Payment for online customers.

CEO Kelvin Lim Choong Kiat, whose leadership earned him the Executive of the Year award in the Financial Services category, has focused not only on developing digital distribution channels for HL Assurance’s products, but also released more than 15 new insurance products to broaden the company’s range of offerings.

Since he joined the company in 2015, he and his team have transformed it from a fledgling insurer to one of the industry’s key players, with a strong presence and a solid customer base. Over the last four years, HL Assurance has received a revenue of $50 million.

Kelvin Lim, CEO of Hong Leong Assurance

T

he insurance landscape is constantly changing, and in order to continue offering competitive products that fulfil clients’ needs, insurers have to constantly innovate.

For HL Assurance, the tireless quest for innovation has paid off. At this year’s Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards, the company won three awards, namely Innovator of the Year, Team of the Year and Executive of the Year.

More than 150 established businesses across a range of industries participated in the event on 26 November 2019, with 28 awards being handed out. The event aims to recognise the achievements of outstanding individuals and teams whose work has contributed significantly to the success of their organisations.

A culture of innovation HL Assurance is no stranger to adding refreshing spins on their insurance

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products. In fact, the company’s commitment to innovation has made them one of the most dynamic players in the insurance industry.

Whilst other insurers have recently been engaging in price wars and slashing the cost of their insurance plans, HL Assurance chooses to take a more balanced approach.

In 2019, HL Assurance offered Singapore’s first travel insurance product with No Claim Discount. They also became the first insurer to offer cashless travel insurance post-journey claims through a partnership with local healthcare providers.

The company also put Singapore’s first hybrid critical illness product on the market.

Claudine Heng, HL Assurance’s Head of Customer Strategy and Direct Marketing,

A team effort HL Assurance’s stellar performance at the SBR Management Excellence Awards is a nod to the supportive and collaborative environment the company cultivates, which enables team members to do their best work.

The company’s executive committee took home the Team of the Year award in the Financial Services category. Whilst relatively small compared to the teams at larger insurers, HL Assurance’s exco has proven to be passionate, entrepreneurial and nimble to adapt to changes.

The company’s leadership prioritises not just attracting top talent, but also ensuring that new hires are meticulously trained and encouraged to learn and experiment with their solutions.

Judging by HL Assurance’s achievements in the past year, their focus on innovation and teamwork is paying great dividends.

“HL Assurance’s stellar performance at the SBR Management Excellence Awards is a nod to the supportive and collaborative environment the company cultivates.”

OUR AWARD-WINNING INSURANCE PRODUCTS TRAVEL

HOME

CAR

PHONE

CRITICAL ILLNESS

KEYMAN

BUSINESS

6702 0202 www.hlas.com.sg Hong Leong Assurance Singapore (incorporated in Singapore as ‘HL Assurance Pte Ltd’) is a member of The Hong Leong Group, a leading conglomerate with diversified businesses in banking and financial services, manufacturing and distribution, property development and investments, hospitality and leisure. The Hong Leong Group controls 13 listed companies in various stock exchanges with over 500 operating subsidiaries and associate companies around the world, and draws from over 50 years of experience to work with clients and partners.

ACCIDENT

MAID

OIL & GAS

The Cement Hose is equipped with a flexible line between the cementing pump manifold and cementing head and is used for the conveyance of cement slurries at extremely high pressures that can reach 15,000 pounds per square inch, during oil drilling and exploration works.

The AquaTerra team at the Made in Singapore Awards 2019

AquaTerra earns award for its Made in Singapore Hoses These are specially designed, engineered and assembled to withstand the severe and harsh conditions both on and offshore.

O

n November 28th, Aqua-Terra Oilfield Equipment & Services Pte Ltd (AquaTerra) received the SBR Made in Singapore Award 2019 in the Oil & Gas category, for the production and assembly of the Aquaflex API 7K hose series.

Integrating. Energizing. Always.

Founded in Singapore in 1972, AquaTerra began as a hardware supplier of hand tools and general supplies. Over the years, it has evolved to cover an increasingly broad spectrum of products and services in the oil & gas, offshore, mining, and related industries.

AquaTerra and its sister companies, SSH and Oceanic, are part of AT&S Pte Ltd, a prominent distributor, Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and supply chain manager for the oil & gas, energy, mining, data centre and China nuclear industries.

Specialising in sourcing and procurement, AquaTerra also provides VMI, engineering and after sales services to complement its extensive product catalogue. AquaTerra is an authorised service centre for Ridgid hand tools and an authorised refurbishment centre for Billy Pugh offshore safety equipment.

With over 40 years of impeccable track record and a wide range of resources and technical expertise to draw upon, AquaTerra is well poised to lead the resurgence of the oil & gas sector in Asia.

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Asia’s complete premier hosing system Utilising over 30 years of experience in the supply and assembly of highpressure hoses, Aquaflex API 7K hoses are specially designed, engineered and assembled to withstand the severe and harsh conditions both off and onshore, with customisation and flexibility in mind.

Severe and harsh conditions AquaTerra is one of only two companies in Southeast Asia to be given the API 7K certification by the American Petroleum Institute.

To be API 7K-certified, Aquaflex must meet the strenuous demands of directional drilling and significantly reduce the occurrence of operational hazards like leakages.

Customisation The Aquaflex line of hoses includes a series of mission critical API 7K-certified drilling hoses used in the oil & gas industry.

The Rotary Drilling Hose has a flexible line between the standpipe and top drive or rotary swivel, which conveys drilling fluids at pressures as high as 7,500 pounds per square inch as it moves up and down with the traveling block.

The Rotary Vibrator Hose boasts a flexible line between the mud pump and standpipe, which pumps mud at pressures as high as 7,500 pounds per square inch, for oil drilling and exploration works.

Flexibility Launched in December 2018, this series of hoses utilises swage-attached coupling without seals, which greatly reduces the lead time required to assemble hoses, including customised hoses, without compromising on quality and reliability. Furthermore, in only 5 to 7 working days, AquaTerra is able to modify the length of its hoses, assemble the entire hosing system and complete pressure testing, all according to API 7K standards.

Business class solution While Aquaflex is a product, it is also a solution for AquaTerra’s clients.

Aquaflex was established with the goal of addressing the shortfall of Asianbased API 7K-certified hoses, and to offer customers a reliable and value-formoney solution that can compete with higher-priced American and European manufacturers.

“In Aquaflex, we hope to deliver to our clients and the world, a product, a certification as well as a price-point that meets physical, insurance and financial requirements. We like to think of Aquaflex as the ‘business class’ option sandwiched between high-priced European and US products and basement-priced Chinese products,” said Christopher Chong Meng Tak, Chairman & CEO of AquaTerra.

Other In addition to the production and assembly of Aquaflex hoses, AquaTerra provides testing, certification, and fitting services of industrial and hydraulic hoses at its headquarters in Singapore.

The company continues to build on its ability and expertise to design, develop, produce, test, certify and market its own range of hoses and fittings.

Aquaflex hosing systems are now distributed in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, India, Qatar, UAE, and Oman.

“We like to think of Aquaflex as the ‘business class’ option sandwiched between high-priced European and US products and basement-priced Chinese products.”

Asia’s Complete Premier Hosing System

Aquaflex is a brand of high-quality hoses developed by Aqua-Terra Oilfield Equipment & Services Pte Ltd. Our hoses are specially designed, engineered and assembled to withstand the severe and harsh conditions both off and onshore. They are designed with customisation and flexibility in mind. With Aquaflex, you’ll get the finest and most reliable hoses out there.

Our range of hoses include: • • • •

High Pressure Hoses – Grade D & E (API 7K-certified) Cementing Hoses – 5K, 10K & 15K PSI (API 7K-certified) Mining – Bulk Commodity Hoses Offshore Series – Industrial Hoses

Aqua-Terra Oilfield Equipment & Services Pte Ltd 19 Jurong Port Road S619093 Tel: +65 6319 4666 | Fax: +65 6268 4455 / +65 6319 4656 Email: enquiry@aterra.com.sg | Website: www.aterra.com.sg

Integrating. Energizing. Always.

Winner of the SBR Made in Singapore Awards 2019 Oil & Gas Category

TRAVEL SERVICES

A family legacy of making travel dreams real The Travel Corporation provides holidays and experiences of a lifetime.

Tollman family in Africa

International travel organisation, The Travel Corporation (TTC), is committed is to consistently deliver outstanding service, experience and value to each and every customer.

“With our portfolio of brands, we strive to help our guests travel in the best way possible and for guided holidays, we curate authentic experiences to help them discover life changing moments that will create lifelong memories,” explained Nicholas Lim, Managing Director of TTC. This year, TTC is celebrating its 100th anniversary and the TreadRight Foundation 12th year anniversary.

TreadRight is a not-for-profit foundation supported by TTC’s family of 42 awardwinning brands around the world. In Asia, TTC brands include Trafalgar, Uniworld, Insight Vacations, Contiki, Costsaver, Luxury Gold, U River Cruises, AAT Kings, Inspiring Journeys and Red Carnation Hotels.

Solomon Tollman first opened a hotel in South Africa in 1920. Today, 100 years after his first hotel, TTC continues to build on his enduring legacy with the same values as a fourth-generation familyowned business. Solomon’s grandson, Brett Tollman, the Global CEO of TTC and founder of TreadRight Foundation, oversees a passionate team located across the globe, all driven by service to make travel dreams real.

Operating in 70 countries, the company’s exceptional portfolio offers an extensive selection of award-winning international travel and tourism companies. Catering to all lifestyles and budget size, the collection includes a variety of guided travel experiences, independent holiday package

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companies, boutique river cruising, luxury hotels and other leisure options.

“As a company, our mission statement is to Make Travel Matter, with a commitment to creating a positive impact by helping to safeguard the people and the communities we visit, to help protect and respect wildlife, and to care for our planet for generations to come,” Lim said.

TreadRight has supported more than 55 sustainable tourism projects in over 280 communities worldwide. Support is provided through grants and donations to leading partners across the sustainable travel spectrum and all funding comes from the company.

Since 2013, TTC teams across the globe have logged more than 14,000 volunteer hours, including beach clean-ups of plastic waste. Since 2018, TTC and its global bands have committed removing as many unnecessary single-use plastics from its supply chains worldwide which provide services and facilities to thousands of immersive trips and experiences delivered in over 70 countries around the world, every day.

“So far, we have and continue to reduce our carbon footprint, including unnecessary single-use plastics, realistically and appropriately within all Red Carnation Hotels, onboard all of our Uniworld ships and within our TTC offices. We still have a long way to go. We remain committed and dedicated to achieving this goal by

December 2022 and will keep updating as we go,” Lim noted.

Single-use plastics are no longer available on TTC’s motor coaches, and the company is working with partners on the ground to make sure valued guests still have access to clean drink water.

“Our guests are positively impacted by our initiatives to make travel matter. We have invested in and introduced an electronic document system to replace paper, while committing to plant a tree for each guest who opts for e-documents with our partner, One Tree Planted (OTP),” Lim added.

This notable not-for-profit organisation is focused on global reforestation with the mission to create a world full of trees.

As engaged citizens of the world, the company believes that everyone can do more, share best practices as well as reduce, reuse and recycle in their respective daily lives to help build and preserve a more sustainable planet for future generations.

Make travel matter Join TTC and pledge to make travel matter— for the planet, for the people and for wildlife—at www.treadright.org/pledge To learn more about TTC’s brands, please visit http://bit.ly/ttcsg For travel inspiration, you can follow TTC on IG @travelttcsg or Facebook at https:// www.facebook.com/travelttcsg To book your leisure holiday or incentive trips with TTC’s guided holiday brands or river cruises, please contact TTC’s travel advisors at (65) 6922 5950.

“As a company, our mission statement is to Make Travel Matter, with a commitment to creating a positive impact to the people and the communities we visit.”

The Region’s Leading School of Hospitality OVER 36 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE IN TALENT DEVELOPMENT

• Appointed Continuous Education Training Centre by SkillsFuture Singapore • Full-time and part-time qualifications available • Enhanced industrial attachment and workplace learning • Structured industry mentorship for career guidance and job placement

• Overseas extension of SHATEC Institutes • Consultancy in setting up of hotel and tourism training institutes • Provision and licensing of proprietary programmes and curricula in host countries • Training services for overseas training institutions and industry

Devoted to customer excellence Unrivalled affiliate network

Obsessed with quality Innovative booking solutions

Expert global teams

Global reach, local expertise

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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E-COMMERCE - BUSINESS SERVICES

SOCOE spearheads Digital Economy Initiatives in Sarawak with disruptive technologies

to one another as well as empowering them to elevate their business. Women are connected through an online community platform, cultivating the spirit of communal collaboration through business matching, leading to effective product marketing, vertical integrations and enterprise growth.

The eWanita online platform has an integrated ePreneurs e-commerce app – an online marketplace with community members as online sellers, thereby promoting sustainable growth through the “click-andmortar” model, enhancing growth in women’s quality of life and economic contribution by reducing the gap in digital access.

To ensure sustainability through the entire commercial process in eWanita and ePreneur; SOCOE’s subsidiary also provides fulfillment, packaging, branding and customer service to merchants who use the company platform, allowing for seamless vertical integrations.

Technology to aid with handling disasters Local company improves lives through human-centric technology for In recent collaborations, SOCOE is developing solutions to improve all facets of people’s lives the community focused on business solutions. including the way in which we handle disasters.

The company is currently working on a mobile he proliferation of cloud-based SOCOE does not isolate itself from one app designed to allow for quick and immediate technologies, artificial intelligence specific group. “We don’t believe that some (AI), and cybersecurity in recent years people are more important than others. Here at responses and relief times. Citizens can report disasters and be notified of any disaster within has made it possible for Sarawak, Land of SOCOE, we pride ourselves on helping anyone a certain radius. The state government is also the Hornbill, to turn the state into a digital transition to a more tech-savvy lifestyle. A economic powerhouse, as envisioned by Chief lifestyle that will aid in growth, communication, able to track, analyse and share consolidated information on disasters within the state.

Minister Abang Johari Openg. Sarawak has and networking,” says Samuel Wong, CEO of launched digital initiatives, such as Sarawak SOCOE. The forthcoming potential of Digital Sarawak Pay for e-payment, and plans to implement SOCOE is no stranger to new technologies. The SMART City systems to manage traffic Empowering women through e-commerce company’s existing cloud-based platform lays efficiency and much more.

On March 2019, SOCOE played a crucial a clear blueprint for clients wanting to develop Sarawak-based technology company role in the launching of eWanita, an online smart cities and participate in IR4.0. Through SOCOE Sdn Bhd (SOCOE) has proven to be community platform for women facilitating the Internet of things (IOT), its end-to-end a successful key player in Sarawak’s digital their development in e-commerce and platform is built to take in massive volumes of economic journey. SOCOE aims to close the entrepreneurship. The eWanita project, a digital divide in Sarawak. Focused on being Sarawak Government digital economy initiative data generated by devices, sensors, websites, applications, customers and partners, which human-centric, the company prioritises the led by Jabatan Wanita dan Keluarga Sarawak subsequently initiate real-time responses. needs of their clients in ensuring that the tech (JWKS) together with Sarawak Multimedia SOCOE’s R&D department is adapting solution fits their requirements.

Authority (SMA), enables women to connect blockchain technologies to meet local needs. This framework, which is behind cryptocurrencies, is a digital ledger that records all transactions without the need for verification authorities, including banks.

Secured and verified transactions, approvals and transacting parties are now enabled across borders, with immutable security, including exchange of information. SOCOE will be implementing the blockchain technology through its customised solutions from online workflows and transactional activites to assets and identity management, thus ensuring secure exchange of information for all of SOCOE’s clients.

T

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Kobe Electronics Material (Thailand) Co.,Ltd The manufacture of copper alloy strip and subsidiary of KOBE STEEL copper division. They produce original copper alloy and our material has been used by terminal and connector for automo�ve and lead frame. KEMT’s material has been popular as good quality for worldwide.

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the best coffee deserves a better milk An Australian collaboration between foodies, baristas & farmers who are passionate about coffee.

Enquiries: Samantha Seow Rong / samantha.seow@ffgl.com.au / +65 8338 4615

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ALSO AVAILABLE IN NON-ORGANIC JUICE VARIANTS www.trublubeverages.com.au 68

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Ying The Label, the first Singapore designer dedicated to translating one-of-a-kind fine art into wearable pieces.

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CONGRATULATIONS Team Osteopore for winning the Medical Category award in SBR Made in Singapore Awards 2019.

This award is for the Osteomesh product.

TM

Empowering Natural Tissue Regeneration 70

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

Osteopore International Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of Osteopore Ltd (ASX:OSX) a publicly traded company on the Australian stock exchange since 23 September 2019.

Ground-breaking advances in medicine are only meaningful when they reach the people who need them.

Access to healthcare is a multi-dimensional challenge; specific to the country and local healthcare system. At Roche we are partnering with local stakeholders to develop tailored access solutions that really make a difference to people.

NPM-MY-0211-1212

TECHNOLOGY

Founder of Tera-Barrier Films named Innovator of the Year for Technology CTO Senthil Ramadas has a strong global patent portfolio of 103 patents in barrier technology.

T

era-Barrier Films Pte Ltd (TBF) Founder and Chief Technology Officer Senthil Ramadas clinched the Innovator of the Year Award for Technology at the Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards 2019.

When Senthil was still with the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering of the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR), he developed a platform barrier technology for flexible electronics, organic solar and displays. Subsequently, he spun-off the technology from A*STAR to start Tera-Barrier Films.

With Senthil’s innovation, the barrier properties of a single oxide barrier layer increased to up to 10,000 times, when a single nano sealing layer is coated on the barrier oxide layer. Barrier properties of the multilayer skyrocketed to up to 10-7 grams per square meter per day as tested by the top university in Japan.

Senthil’s barrier stack, which consists of one

oxide barrier layer and one nano sealing layer cuts costs and shows results that are 1,000 times better, compared to competing multilayer technologies. His innovation has reduced the number of barrier layers in the barrier stack and has a competitive edge.

Recently, Senthil also invented a single stretchable nano sealing layer that is 50 times better than regular transparent barrier oxide layers or multilayer barrier plastic films, which are used in food and medical packaging.

Validated by celebrated companies, this stretchable nano sealing layer is considered to be the top alternative for aluminum barriers in food and medical application, and the projected market is several billion dollars.

His technology attracted investments from leading companies, such as KISCO, 3M, New Chemical Trading and other multinational companies.

Senthil has been working in the field of barrier technology for nearly 30 years and

has a strong global patent portfolio of 103 patents in barrier technology. He has also garnered several awards for his barrier films.

His invention was included in the Scientist & Entrepreneur Award (A*STAR). Frost and Sullivan awarded him the Next Generation Technology Award, and AIMCAL - KRICT recognised his research with the Best Paper Award.

SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

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Your Digital Day made EASY Blu5Group.com 72

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Dashboard C AL EN DAR

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CLICK TO VIEW TASK AND APPOINTMENT

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Pushing the boundaries of light.

Leaps forward in LED technology have opened up a wide range of new and underserved markets that demand innovative applications. Seizing these lucrative opportunities in Architecture, Entertainment, High Impact Retail and Human Centric Lighting is easier with Lumileds on your side.

To learn more about partnering with Lumileds to push the boundaries of light, visit lumileds.com or contact your Lumileds representative today.

LUMILEDS ILLUMINATION LEDs ©2019 Lumileds Holding B.V. All Rights Reserved.

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Driving business performance through consistent innovative technology, Consider iProspect Sdn Bhd snag ged two awards at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards for 'Pronto'.

Pronto is an ArtiďŹ cial Intelligence (AI) business intelligence tool that was developed in Malaysia to enable clients to make decisions that are AI based & assist them in implementing data driven marketing.

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support@ledgit.com SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW | MARCH 2020

RECOGNISING MALAYSIA’S LEADING COMPANIES IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION Strato Solutions Sdn Bhd is an MSC status Malaysian technology and business consulting company with satellite offices in Jakarta and London.

As Industry 4.0 and Digital Economy enablers, our team consists of professional, highly specialized engineers and IT professionals who use the most advanced technologies to provide meaningful solutions to our clients.

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CONNECTING TO THE FUTURE

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75

Portal MyAzZahra is the first end-to-end cooperative

loan

solution

that

caters

specifically to the 1.8 million public servants.

The system was developed hand-in-hand

with Angkatan Koperasi Kebangsaan Malaysia

Berhad (ANGKASA) to bring the current cooperative

loan

processes

to

the

21st

century by providing an advanced platform that constantly improves with every iteration.

Our next generation will include industry

leading eKYC, which will enable instant authentication, and integration to various databases to provide faster and easier loans.

MALAYSIA TECHNOLOGY EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2019

Portal MyAzZahra

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portalmyazzahra

The platform is able to extract information of standardized documents using AI based OCR technology to minimize data entry.

The The system system also also utilizes utilizes state-ofstate-ofthe-art the-art AI AI based based alternate alternate credit credit scoring scoring and and Bigdata Bigdata analytics analytics to to provide provide an an accurate accurate representation representation of of aa person’s person’s credit credit worthiness worthiness by by analyzing analyzing the the applicant’s applicant’s spending spending behavior. behavior.

Digital - Financial Services (MyAngkasa Az Zahra Sdn Bhd)

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Polygon Asia Consulting Enterprise

FutuReady Asia hopes to be a catalyst for action inspiring youth to make decisions and implement plans to improve their quality of life. With its sight set on imparting relevant skills to the next generation, FutuReady Asia engages all stakeholders, regardless of race, socio-economic status, or interests. Specialising in youth and human capital development, FutuReady Asia hopes to encapsulate character and values into customised programs to nurture and embrace lives s.

www.futuready.asia futureadyasia futuready.asia

Teambuilding Workshop I Outdoor Adventure Camp I Leadership Workshop I Corporate Workshhop I Facilitation Workshop I Career Workshop I Conferences

POLYGON Asia Consulting Enterprise

Polygon Asia Consulting Enterprise is a Centre of Excellence for Business Consulting.

We provide consulting and training services in: human capital development, business excellence, business strategy, business process re-engineering and business innovation. We support clients globally across the value chain in a variety of capacities such as;

Human Capital Development I Business Model Transformation I Business Excellence I Business Process Re-Engineering I Branding and Marketing I Business Coaching I Digitalisation I Initiate Business Relations I Training & Development

For more information, do check us out at:

www.futuready.asia

www.polygongroup.asia

ABOUT THE FOUNDER a/p Delane LIM A/P Delane Lim, once overcome with depression, was almost pushed to the brink of suicide. Now, he is a beacon of light for youths around Singapore.

Harnessing the strength through conquering his inner and outer adversities, he is paving the way for the next generation of “future-ready” youths.

He was recently acknowledged and accorded under the JCI Ten Outstanding Young Person of the World 2019's Honoree for Contribution to Children, World Peace & Human Rights.

corporate disruptions. He is currently a certified practising management consultant, being one of the youngest to be certified within the sector, at the age of 28.

A self-made entrepreneur with a social intent to reach out to youths, Delane was the former CEO of Agape Group Holdings (2005 – 2016). In Oct 2016, he founded FutuReady Asia Singapore, an agency that focuses on youth development training and development for the future (www.futuready.asia).

In 2010, he was also appointed as Executive Believing in the importance of education and life-long learning, he graduated with a Bachelors Director for International Centre for Experiential Learning & Leadership (South East Asia). In April Degree in Business Administration. Following which, he also completed a Post Graduate Dual 2018, he was headhunted to manage Formwerkzʼs Group of Companies as their first Executive Diploma in Human Capital Management & Training and Development. To top it all, he also Director, an archi-design-tech firm in Singapore. To date, he continues to serve as Executive Director for holds a Professional Diploma in Leadership & the Character & Leadership Academy Limited and is People Management. concurrently appointed as the Co-Founder & Mentor Over the last 15 years, he has coached and trained for FutuReady Asia Singapore. over 800,000 professionals, managers, In line with his life-long mission of service, he entrepreneurs, educators, social workers, politicians, public servants and youths. Focusing initiated HAPPYOUTH in 2014, a youth suicide on areas such as Leadership, Entrepreneurship, prevention programme in Singapore, where Delane is one of the few certified experienced suicide Mental Health & Suicide Prevention, Character Development, and more recently in innovation and prevention specialist and lead trainers in Asia.

For enquiries on business consulting or corporate teambuilding, please email us at:

champion1@futuready.asia

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