Peter Lim

Peter Lim
Photo of Peter Lim
Native name	林榮福
Born	1953 Singapore
Residence	Singapore
Citizenship	Singapore
Education	University of Western Australia
Occupation	Businessman, Investor[1]
Net worth	US$2.4 billion (September 2016)[2]
Spouse(s)	Cherie Lim (m. 2003)
Children	2 (from ex-wife Venus Teo)

Peter Lim (born 1953) is a Singaporean business magnate, entrepreneur, philanthropist and investor. Lim, who was one of Singapore's leading stockbrokers is now a private investor. He is an astute and diversified investor who looks long-term and has invested in sectors ranging from palm oil to medical. According to the 2016 Forbes list, Lim is the 11th richest in Singapore with a net worth of US$2.4 billion.^[3]

Lim was born in very modest circumstances. The son of a fishmonger, Lim and his seven siblings grew up in a two-bedroom government flat in one of Singapore’s oldest public housing estates, Bukit Ho Swee. Bukit Ho Swee was a notorious neighbourhood for its lawlessness. The residents were associated with Chinese triad society, attap and wooden huts, poverty, frequent gang clashes and mostly illiterate and uneducated Singaporeans.^[4] Lim learnt a lot surviving through Bukit Ho Swee in the early years in Singapore. He never made an excuse to work hard despite his economic conditions although he found it hard to get into a respectable University because of his economic background. He put himself through the University of Western Australia, in Perth, by working as taxi driver, cook and waiter, among other odd jobs and ultimately came home with a degree in finance and accounting.^[5]

Lim is known to fight at all cost to protect his credibility given his prominent background and his wealth. Lim will react aggressively to clear false allegations and to stymie frivolous claims. Lim won the biggest libel payout in Singaporean history in the Raffles Town Club saga.^[6]

As a philanthropist, Lim focusses on education and sports to help those who are capable and driven but lack the financial resources, reflecting his own experience growing up. To date, the most high profile project is the $10 million scholarship fund under the Singapore Olympic Foundation (SOF) to nurture local sports talents in 2010.^[7] His donations to numerous other charities have not been profiled.

Lim married Cherie Lim in 2003 and has 2 children, Kim and Kiat Lim, from ex-wife Venus Teo. ^[3]

Early life

Lim completed his secondary school education in Raffles Institution. While he was not a very good student in school, he was an outstanding artillery officer in National Service (Best trainee – Foxtrot Company Platoon 3 June 1972, Best Cadet – Y battalion. Basic artillery officers’ course June 1973). At the age of 20, he started dabbling in stocks and bought his first lot of shares with his wage of $385 a month. He lost money. After National Service, he went to Perth to further his studies at the University of Western Australia. To fund his university education, Lim worked part-time doing odd jobs as a taxi-driver, cook and waiter. It was one of these jobs - in the Australian fast-food chain Red Rooster - that opened his eyes to how business was done. Lim watched how they started, how they grew, and how they scaled up. It was also in university where he honed his instincts and skills as an investor. He graduated with a degree in accounting and finance and stepped out into the working world. Lim’s first job as an accountant lasted three months. He did some tax consultancy before he went into stocks.^[8]

Early career

In the early '90s, Lim got involved in a start-up Indonesian palm-oil company, Wilmar. By the second half of the decade, he had totally written off that investment. The Indonesian economy was weakening from the mid 90s and then the Indonesian currency fell from 2,500 rupiah against the US dollar to 16,000 rupiah, and president Suharto was ousted. There were riots in Indonesia. The markets tanked when the financial crisis hit in 1997. In 2000, Lim restructured his stake in Wilmar with a US$10 million investment. It was a difficult period in the economy. Together with Solomon Smith Barney, he took Wilmar on a roadshow to India, China and Indonesia to raise new equity and reduce debt. The roadshow was not successful. Lim persevered with Wilmar. Wilmar did a Reverse Take Over (RTO) in 2006. Businessman Robert Kuok decided to inject his Malaysian palm oil operations into Wilmar in 2007. In response to a 2006 FDA ruling mandating the labeling of trans fatty acids on the Nutrition Facts label, food manufacturers began eliminating trans fats from their products and began substituting them with palm oil. Imports to the United States alone increased by nearly 60%. The increased use of biofuels at the expense of fossil fuels also contributed significantly to demand. Palm oil prices started to go through the roof.^[9] In 2010, Lim cashed out for US$1.5 billion.

The ‘Remisier King’, as Lim is also known because of his success in stocks, explains that while there was an element of luck, it was also because he created a role for himself as a “one man merchant bank”. He became indispensable to both retail and high net worth investors.

In the midst of his prolonged divorce, Lim quit the broking business in 1996 and became a private investor. He was fortunate to escape the 1997 Asian financial crisis as he had liquidated most of his clients' positions and debt exposure.

On his divorce with Venus Teo, Lim believes that money created more trouble in his personal life. The divorce was reportedly a prolonged one, involving a high-profile settlement of S$50 million and prolonged allegations about Lim hiding assets. Lim says, “Money is a funny thing. When you don’t have it, you want it. But when you have it, you have a lot of problems. I believe that if I’d had no money, I wouldn’t have had my divorce. Things wouldn’t be good, but it wouldn’t end up in a divorce.”^[10]

Investment philosophy

As a private investor, Lim has been very flexible and looks for prospects in very varied sectors from palm oil to medical. He invests in these sectors for the long term and advises young investors to be patient. Lim says “You may not have a lot of money, but you have a lot of time”.^[11] The minimum length of his investments are five to six years, and usually 10–12 years. For example, he bought 3 units of a 11-storey block at prestigious Ardmore Park, near Orchard Road in 1994 for $6 million. He continued buying the rest during the financial crisis. It is now worth more than $100 million. Same with Wilmar, which he cashed out of in 2010.

While Lim got where he is today through a mixture of savvy investing and sheer grit, the self-made mogul also believes that his enormous wealth can be attributed in some way to destiny. Lim says, “If today I have $10 million, I’d say over 90 per cent is due to my hard work. But getting it right is not $1 billion. Maybe it’s $100 million. How that $100 million becomes $1 billion, you know it’s because somebody likes you. You must believe it’s somehow a path that’s been drawn.”^[10]

Lim is well known for his almost casual attitude towards money and investing. When Singapore’s stock market nosedived back in 2007, he described the resultant erosion of more than $100 million of his stock’s value as merely a “paper loss”. Lim says, “when you are holding stocks, if it goes up, don’t be too happy; when it goes down, don’t be too sad. Otherwise, your life will also be fluctuating and you’ll die of a heart attack. If you really lose sleep over it, maybe the best way is to keep the money in the bank.” ^[10] When Lim dropped out of the billionaire list after the market meltdown in 2008, Lim remarked "what's the problem! dropped out not dropped dead!".^[12] The following year he rejoined the list.

In the sports sector, Lim owns a controlling stake (82.3%) in Spanish La Liga club Valencia CF, 50% stake in Salford FC with former Manchester United players Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt holding the other 50%, and stakes in British supercar maker McLaren Automotive and Hotel Football right next to the Old Trafford Stadium in Manchester. Lim also owns Mint Media which owns the image rights of Cristiano Ronaldo.

His portfolio of investments include property developer Rowsley, security provider Secura Group and Singapore’s leading architectural firm RSP.

In 2010, Lim took Singapore’s first and leading private women’s hospital, Thomson Medical, private for S$522 million. Quoted from a Business Times report, “Thomson Medical is a leading healthcare service provider in Singapore for obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatric services. Given the growing population and affluence in the region, there will be increasing demand for private healthcare services,” Lim said.^[13]

Lim has also stepped up plans to transform part of the land he owns in Iskandar Malaysia into a medical hub – Thomson Iskandar. TMC LifeSciences, a Malaysia- listed firm which he controls, has bought a health complex in the area for RM400 million (S$153 million). 70% is owned by Mr Lim, with Johor Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Idris holding the other 30%. Thomson International, a subsidiary of Thomson Medical, will manage the complex.

Lim also has two major projects in the southern Malaysian state of Johor. A medical hub project at Vantage Bay in Johor Bahru town and in FASTrack Autosports, an integrated sports hub in Malaysia.

Reputation and credibility

Lim, by principle, will not be taken advantage of by individuals who are out for his money. He is known to spend vast amounts in legal fees to clear false allegations and thwart frivolous claims in order to protect his credibility at all cost. The most famous case is the Raffles Town Club saga.

Lim, a former consultant to Raffles Town Club, launched a libel suit against Mr Lin Jian Wei and Ms Margaret Tung — who took over the club in 2001 — for defamatory remarks they had made in a statement to settle a separate lawsuit brought by unhappy club members. In the statement sent out late in 2005, Mr. Lin and Ms. Tung suggested that the club’s financial difficulties were due to mismanagement by the original directors and management, one of whom was Lim. Although the High Court dismissed the defamation lawsuit, Lim did not relent and appealed. The appellate court ruled in Lim’s favour and ordered the biggest libel payout in Singaporean history. When deciding the amount, the court noted Lim’s position as a prominent businessman who built up a formidable reputation in the stockbroking industry and who was frequently cited as one of the richest men in Singapore and Asia. The statement attacked Lim’s professional reputation and standing and “called into question his competence, integrity and business acumen”, the court found. He won the biggest libel payout in Singaporean history, and he doubled the $220,000 award he received and donated it to Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund – an educational charity.^[14]

In another case, on 29 August 2016, Lim filed a police report over an article which claimed he had revealed a way to make easy money from working at home. The claims were made in an advertisement-like article, which seemed to be trying to convince people to use a program to make fast money. A statement issued through his firm said that Lim “is concerned and alarmed that his name is and continues to be used by parties with possible ill intentions to mislead unsuspecting members of the public, so he has lodged a police report”. The statement also advised members of the public not to get fooled by the “false and misleading claims” to avoid becoming victims of get-rich-quick scams. Lim cautioned that "money doesn't drop from the sky'.^[15]

Philanthropy

Born and bred in Singapore, and bolstered by the opportunities afforded to him by Singapore’s meritocratic system, Lim has made it one of his life missions to give back. As a philanthropist, Lim focuses on education and sports to help those who are capable and driven but lack the financial resources. Lim says ‘'Education must be cheap and accessible to anyone. For me, I was the son of a fishmonger, but I could still go to the best school. I had the opportunity to make money”. Lim has been discrete about his charitable contributions over the years and much of it was anonymous. It is well known that in the early '90s, he was one of the earlier donors to the National Kidney Foundation.

The most profiled donation was in June 2010 when the Singapore Olympic Foundation (SOF) set up the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship with a S$10-million donation from Lim. The gift remains the single largest donation in Singapore from an individual towards sports development. The driving force behind the Scholarship is the desire to ensure that no promising young athlete, committed to chasing his sporting dreams, should be hampered by financial considerations. From 2011 to 2015, more than 1,450 scholarships, totaling over S$3.8 million, were disbursed.^[7]

Lim not only donates money. He also takes it upon himself to deliver food, like rice and cooking oil, to needy families in one-room flats and old folks' homes. Separately, Lim also uses his wide network of sports superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton, Jose Mourinho, among others, to benefit kids in Singapore schools. While many schools clamour to have these superstars visit, Lim has preferred to prioritise visits to schools like Crest Secondary and Northlight school for kids with learning difficulties to engage the children and motivate them. Lewis Hamilton also visited ITE College West in 2012 under the ambit of the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship.

References

External links

• Bio at Forbes magazine
• Write up at Wall Street Journal