Me & My Money Series (Sunday Times)

The Straits Times
Jan 22, 2012
me & my money
New view on life after near-death experience
Family comes first for financial adviser, and work is more for personal satisfaction

By Joyce Teo

A near-death health scare in 2009 changed Ms Peh Li Lin's perspective on life and her mindset towards money.

The 39-year-old, who runs three childcare centres, and is also a financial adviser at Tokio Marine Life Insurance and at her own business insurance consultancy, Millea Insure-Centric, went back to work less than a month after giving birth to her fourth child in 2009. As she said: 'There were tonnes of work to do.'

The activity caused some fairly heavy bleeding and she was hospitalised for a week in the third week. Thinking it was a minor problem, she went back to work after that. But she then collapsed due to a womb haemorrhage and had to spend a week in intensive care.

'It almost ended my life... I felt so hopeless,' she says.

'Now when I look at work, it's less for the money and more for personal satisfaction. The income is a bonus. In life, it is not just about being academically smart. It is also about the time you can spend with your children.

'I tell myself that I won't wait till tomorrow to do whatever I can do today. I want to help as many people as possible in meeting their personal insurance needs. I also want to help more children achieve holistic development in their early years.'

In 2008, Ms Peh and her husband invested about $400,000 of their savings and took a $100,000 loan to buy over two childcare centres. They have just partnered with others to add a third centre to their business. She was a flight stewardess from the age of 18 to 28.

Her childcare centres under the Zee Group take in a number of children with learning difficulties, and have a team of specialists to help these children with their different learning styles.

She is married to Mr Lawrence Goh, 43, a director of Zee Group and Millea Insure-Centric. They have four children - Annabelle, 11, Bon Shaw, eight, Anais, five and Amelin, two.

Q: Are you a spender or saver?

I was a saver, saving up to 90 per cent of my income when I was single. When I had my children, I was happy to spend on them and I have become more of a spender since 2009.

I save 20 per cent and spend about 30 per cent of my income on servicing mortgages, insurance plans, my children's education and my personal expenditure. We pay about $80,000 a year in premiums, mostly in endowment plans. I see it as forced savings.

I set aside 50 per cent of my income for my businesses' operation expenses and future expansion.

After my health scare, I don't think so much about spending money and am happy to spend more on longer overseas trips. Now, I even take my extended family along and that is the quality time that money cannot buy.

I just came back from a holiday in Italy with my two older kids and I spent 20 euros (S$33) on a cup of ice cream for them. My sister said to me recently: 'When you were a stewardess, you holed up in the hotel room to save money instead of seeing the world, but now you can pay 20 euros for ice cream.'

Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?

I charge an average of $3,000 to $4,000 a month. It's for my personal expenses, including entertaining clients and buying vitamins and health products.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?

I invest in properties, shares and insurance. My husband and I are insured for more than $500,000 each. We have life insurance, endowment and personal accident plans.

My children are also well covered. I also bought endowment plans for their education needs, for which I need to set aside $5,000 per annum per child.

I still have about $200,000 invested in shares, including some blue chips. I suffered a lot of paper losses in 2008 and now, I do not touch my portfolio as I don't have time to monitor the stock market.

Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?

My family consists of my parents, an elder brother, an elder sister and a younger brother. My mum is a housewife and my father, who is in his 70s, still runs his home appliances business in a shop unit that he owns in Jalan Besar.

As kids, we would hang out at my father's shop and that was how I became interested in business. I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps to be an entrepreneur.

My father is a hard-working and thrifty person, but is willing to spend on the children. This has rubbed off on me and I always put my family first.

Q: How did you get interested in investing?

I bought my first insurance plan when I turned 18. I was working as a stewardess then and I knew how important it was to have insurance to cover accidents and to save for the future.

Q: What property do you own?

I am a co-owner of a five-bedroom terrace house in Pasir Ris, which my parents live in. My husband and I own a 1,200 sq ft condo near Bedok Reservoir that cost about $700,000 and is being tenanted out. Both are fully paid up.

I also own a 1,300 sq ft condo in Tanjong Katong worth $1.3 million, but it's not fully paid up yet.

My father has always encouraged me to buy property as they offer good returns over the long term.

Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?

A Chopard diamond-studded dress watch, which cost $15,000.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

I hope to retire when my children can take over my businesses, that is if they want to. I hope my business will reach a net worth of $10 million in five to eight years.

Q: Home is now...

The three-bedroom condo in Tanjong Katong.

Q: I drive...

A blue Honda Civic Hybrid and a grey Toyota Estima.

joyceteo@sph.com.sg

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BEST & WORST BETS

Q: What is your worst investment to date?

I invested in Transview shares in 2007. I put in $50,000 in several phases and lost $30,000, but am still holding on to the shares.

I bought more shares when the price started to fall, hoping it will average out when the price bounced back but it never did.

Q: And your best?

I invested close to $500,000 in two childcare centres in 2008.

They now have a combined annual turnover of more than $1.5 million. And the market price of the two businesses is now at least $1.6 million.

i see an impressive and successful lady.

Finally, an article that is worth the 5 mins reading.

We need more down to earth and truthful ppl like that. Instead of those fellas who are 24yrs and start biz which are financed by parents.

Sounds like another lousy interview. Plays up the good parts, plays down the mistakes, "boasts" quite a bit (spent $100,000 on wedding; fully-paid up BMW) and is highly leveraged.

The Straits Times
Jan 29, 2012
ME & MY MONEY
Mentor helped him rise from rags to riches
Becoming an insurance agent proves to be right move for engineering graduate

By Joyce Teo

Growing up poor made Darren Tan Zi Hong, 36, determined to strike it rich on his own.

It is why he became an insurance agent right after he completed an engineering degree at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2001.

In his third year at NTU, he underwent an industrial attachment and knew then the field was not for him. 'I knew I wasn't going to get rich being an engineer,' he said.

He thus joined Mr Peter Tan, who is with Prudential Assurance, and who taught him how to build his first pot of gold through insurance sales. 'I was looking for a mentor and I joined him, rather than the trade.'

He is now a group financial services director and is in the midst of building a property portfolio. His wife Alisa Tan Li Ping, 32, has her own estate planning business. They have no children.

Q: Are you a spender or saver?

I used to save about 20 per cent of my income for a rainy day. Now I save about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of it as I have built up a six-month pool of reserves for emergencies.

I invest about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of my money in insurance products. The rest is spent on my family's lifestyle. Every year, I go on shopping holidays with my wife to cities in the United States or Europe.

Q: How much do you charge to your credit card monthly?

I charge about $10,000 to my cards monthly and I pay up in full. I have five credit cards but use two of them most frequently because of the frequent flier points.

I withdraw $2,000 in cash every fortnight, a chunk of which goes to supporting my parents and my wife's parents.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?

My life insurance portfolio, which is a mix of jumbo term plans and whole life plans, is worth about $4 million.

If something untoward happens to me, I want to leave enough money to generate a certain amount of returns to sustain my wife and our parents for the rest of their lives.

We have full medical hospitalisation protection and would not need to pay a cent should we be hospitalised, and I have $500,000 worth of endowment policies.

I am in the midst of building my property portfolio, which now consists of commercial and residential properties. To diversify my portfolio, I recently invested around $50,000 in gold. I bought a gold certificate as I did not want to keep gold in my house.

Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?

I grew up in a four-room flat with my hearing-impaired parents, two brothers, grandmother and an aunt.

My dad was a helper at a wet market stall. If not for my aunt, I would not have finished university. She was very thrifty and whatever money she had, she would spent on me and my brothers.

While I never felt that I lacked basic needs such as food, I was envious of those who managed to rise from rags to riches. I was determined not to be poor and I decided to find a mentor who would be able to show me the route out of poverty.

Q: How did you get interested in investing?

I took up a financial management elective taught by Mr Peter Tan in the fourth year of university and my world opened up to the world of finance.

I made 40 per cent from my first unit trust investment, which was in global telecoms. I bought it direct from the bank in 2000.

Subsequently, I lost some money in penny stocks as I became overconfident.

Q: What properties do you own?

I started investing in property in 2005 together with a few friends. I have flipped more than 10 properties this way. I literally poured in everything I had to do this.

But when the market came down in 2008, I decided to buy and hold.

I own a 969 sq ft unit in Southbank that cost $529,000 and a 958 sq ft two-bedder in the Kembangan area that I bought for $900,000. The latter is being tenanted out at a 4.6 per cent yield.

I also own a substantial stake in a 1,604 sq ft commercial unit in The Adelphi that was purchased for $2.95 million, or $1,839 per sq ft (psf). It is now worth about $2,200 psf.

Eventually, I want to diversify into the region, perhaps to places like Hong Kong.

Q: What's the most extravagant thing that you have bought?

I spent more than $100,000 on my wedding celebrations three years ago.

We had our wedding shots taken in Paris and hosted a grand wedding dinner in St Regis hotel. I don't regret it as the wedding was very memorable for me and my wife. Memories are priceless.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

My retirement goal is to ensure I have an inflation-adjusted monthly income of $30,000.

When I retire at 65, I will have about $500,000 cash from my endowment plans. The rest of my retirement funds will be from the rental income of my properties and from my alternative assets portfolio.

I don't have time to do charity work now, but this is my future goal. My wife and I want to support charities that take care of underprivileged children.

Q: Home is...

My Southbank apartment.

Q: I drive...

A fully paid-up black BMW 5 series.

joyceteo@sph.com.sg

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WORST AND BEST BETS

Q: What's your worst investment to date?

In 2009, I lost nearly $50,000 in a tech firm. It was that one time when I bought on a merger and acquisition rumour.

The acquisition didn't materialise and my $50,000 became less than $1,000 when the price plunged to below 10 cents a share.

It was a lesson learnt and I decided to focus instead on my insurance business.

Q: What is your best investment to date?

I bought an 883 sq ft studio office unit in the 99-year leasehold Central above Clarke Quay MRT station for $1.13 million at the launch in 2005. I sold it for $1.59 million in 2008. That's a profit of $460,000.

I think he is playing a dangerous game. You might notice he have a tendency to hold on to his losses rather than admit the mistake and sell it off. He was a property flipper but became a buy and hold investor when 2008 property price plunge. $50k invested in a stock can become $1k. At 36 years old and become a Group Financial Director, he must be very good in his job.

from what i see, he is one of the reasons why our properties are now so expensive..

Some folks work hard to show others how well they are doing, it motivates them, there is nothing wrong with that.
What is not so right is that he says he does not have any time for charity work.
If you are not doing it, don't say it. In charity there is no such thing as future goal.

For the folks that need your help, they need it now, not in the future, not when you have time.
It is not how much you give but where it came from, did it come from the heart?
Deep down inside, do you really want to make it better for the folks that need help?

A lot of these interviews are quantitative, measured in $ terms.
Life is more than that. Now there are a lot of things that cannot be measured with $.

I.e. So he spent $100000 on wedding. Sure, it is a very nice thing to have but these day, there is
too much emphasis on the 'frills'. It is not about the photos, it is not about how grand the wedding is....Marriage is about a lifetime commitment, it is the long term companionship that matters.

(29-01-2012, 09:57 PM)Bibi Wrote: He was a property flipper but became a buy and hold investor when 2008 property price plunge.

Well, you know what they say - an "investment" is speculation which has not gone your way!

I feel he should also be upfront over his other investment mistakes so that others can learn. To lose 98% of your investment ($49,000 out of $50,000) sounds pretty serious indeed!

These interviews also do not reveal the extent of leverage taken up by these middle-aged adults and their DSR. Not sure if the yield he quoted is gross yield or net yield (after expenses).

The Straits Times
Feb 5, 2012
Safe bets pay off for ad agency boss
Owner of small firm doesn't like to take big risks, preferring to invest in property and pension fund

By Joyce Teo

For six years until recently, Mr Stephen Mangham, 50, was the group chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, and busy managing 600 people.

Today, he runs a 12-man outfit called Mangham Gaxiola, which he started with his former creative partner Robert Gaxiola.

Small as it is, so far, it has been 'hugely rewarding and fun', he says, because the business is his and starting his own firm was something that he had thought about on and off over the past 15 years.

His firm has got off to a flying start, having secured a founding client in CIMB bank.

Mr Mangham graduated with a law degree from Oxford University, but chose to be in advertising.

'At university, I edited the uni newspaper, which made me think that I would enjoy working in an industry which is also about the art of persuasion and communication,' he says. 'I have never regretted the decision.'

Mr Mangham and his wife Helen have four boys, aged 10, 15, 19 and 21.

Q: Are you a spender or saver?

I don't like to owe money, so I have always tried to make sure that I spend less than I earn. I try to strike a balance between making sure that we enjoy life now, and putting away enough for our old age.

I don't spend much on myself. Most of my monthly income is spent (other than pension savings and mortgage payments), but I have saved all my bonus payments over the years.

I spend the most on my family, on my kids' education, their swimming lessons, rugby lessons and so on.

Four boys don't come cheap, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?

Probably about $5,000. I try to use debit cards rather than credit cards.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?

A good chunk of our money is invested in property. I have a pension fund and some money in shares.

And my wife has a trust in her name. But we also keep quite a lot on short-term deposit, just in case we need it, in Singapore and Britain.

I'm quite conservative when it comes to investing. I don't like to take risks, and I have an aversion to managed unit trusts where agents take large commissions upfront. I invested in unit trusts which charge a 7 per cent fee and it hardly grew. It was because what little gains there were went to the fees.

I have two life insurance policies, which are enough to look after my family should anything unfortunate happen.

I have three properties in Europe and none here.

First, I invest only in what I know well, which is my business.

Second, I like to keep a lot of money in very safe schemes. I believe housing should be long-term investments. If you don't know where you are going to be in the next 10 years, investing in a market that you don't know very well is very risky.

I don't believe in taking a blind gamble that prices will rise all the time. I know an expat who bought a property at the peak and was made redundant two months after that.

Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?

I am the oldest of three children. I have a brother and sister. My father was an aeronautical engineer and my mother a nurse. I had a comfortable, happy upbringing - a typical lower middle class one.

Money was sometimes tight, but I never went without it. I grew up realising that you had to earn money before you could spend it.

Q: How did you get interested in investing?

My first investment was in an apartment in London when I was 22. It just seemed more sensible to buy my own place rather than pay someone else the rent.

The apartment cost £30,000. I borrowed the 10 per cent deposit from the bank and made the purchase jointly with a friend.

We then had enough money to buy a bed each, but that was about it.

Q: What properties do you own?

I have a two-bedroom apartment in London, which I bought in 2009 for about $1.2 million and an apartment in Cheltenham, Britain, which was purchased in 1999 for about $500,000. These two properties are tenanted out. I also bought a house in the south of France in 2006 for $850,000. We just sold a house in Cheltenham and are thinking of getting another one.

Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?

Our greatest extravagance as a family are the family holidays. We take a few holidays a year.

Our most expensive holiday was a round-the-world trip just over 10 years ago.

We bought business-class tickets and took in Los Angeles, Brisbane, Sydney, Hong Kong and China over five weeks.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

I plan to be financially independent when I get the children off my hands!

I don't plan to retire, that's for sure. I can't see a time when I'm not in this business.

I enjoy it too much. Retirement will come, for sure, but it's too far away to think about it now.

Q: Home is now...

A leased five-bedroom bungalow with a pool near Holland Road.

Q: I drive...

A leased Toyota sport utility vehicle for $2,900 a month, including insurance.

I would love to drive something exciting, but I can't bring myself to spend so much money on a car.

joyceteo@sph.com.sg

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WORST AND BEST BETS

Q: What's your best investment to date?

This happened when I was offered the chance to invest in the shares of a company I worked with, a public listed firm in Britain.

It was going through something of a turnaround and I was one of the 50 senior guys who were given the chance to own a stake in it. I made a 300 per cent return in three years.

Q: And your worst?

I took out an endowment policy in the late 1980s and it fell miserably short of the target payout.

I accelerated the policy from 25 years to 20 years and took the money out. The target payout was £90,000, but it came in at only £70,000.

Endowment policies were very popular then; I followed the crowd.

Quote:But we also keep quite a lot on short-term deposit, just in case we need it, in Singapore and Britain.

Lots of cash.

Quote:I have three properties in Europe and none here.

3 Properties in Europe.

Quote:I plan to be financially independent when I get the children off my hands!

BUT, still not yet financially independent!


So, either highly geared (for the 3 properties) or very high living expenses.