Me & My Money Series (Sunday Times)

[WolfT]

He save half of his income and he saves 10k per mth.
So he earns abt 20k per mth. Rather little for a MMC CFO?
He is 37 this year.
It is irony that he is in insurance and he claim that his worst investment is unit trust.

[Temperament]

He save half of his income and he saves 10k per mth.
So he earns abt 20k per mth. Rather little for a MMC CFO?
He is 37 this year.
It is irony that he is in insurance and he claim that his worst investment is unit trust.

Agreed! It is just a little bit too strange to me that an actuary who doesn't invest in the Stock Market. It's even worse if you think how come an actuary doesn't know how to take risks in the markets? What makes him study to be actuary then? Well, this is where "Fact is stranger than Fiction" as the clique goes.

[Jared Seah]

How can he say unit trusts are good? It would be like working for BMW and drives a Lexus...

That's why he says he "invests" in investment-linked policies

But he revealed his "horse foot" a bit...

His investment-linked policy is a balanced fund. So is his unit trust (stocks and bonds).

So if unit trust is his worst investment, ergo... Or maybe it's same same but different!?

I like his story as it's a good example of earning power plus saving that really powers! Never mind even if he don't or can't invests.

$20,000 save 50% = savings $10,000 (can change cars every 2 years)

$ 2,000 save 80% = savings $ 1,600 (can change motorbike every 2 years)

Nobody ever "saved" their way out of poverty.

[Musicwhiz]

you cannot think of everything that way. in some cases if you dun even have a BMW you cannot gain excess to privilege customers. how does that work out. 4 deals to cover your bmw cost. it is never a given.

well I guess in this case you are assuming that the car is being used for work. But this is not the case for the majority of people, hence I would still think it is a crippling liability.

[weijian]

I believe most of us agree that one's financial status should be unknown to others as much as possible, as it generally does themselves no good with more info revealed - So, i find it really interesting that our CFO here actually reveals enough information to give us a good guestimate of how much he earns a month! (In past articles, most folks would just reveal percentages of savings etc).. Is his purpose to flaunt his wealth (he should belong to the 1%) or he is openly inviting headhunters to give him a better offer for his services?

Nonetheless, should applaud him for resisting the temptation to put his city sq residences as his 'best investment'! (Double in price leh!) He recognises that his place of residence is NOT an investment.

[Musicwhiz]

Perhaps he is unwittingly inviting the taxman to levy more taxes on him, haha !

[WolfT]

Perhaps he is unwittingly inviting the taxman to levy more taxes on him, haha !

There is very little he can do to evade tax, usually it is those business owner that require e extra footworks by iras.
Seriously, I think he is glossly underpaid or maybe he has other perks like stock option or big bonus.
My buddy CFO of a listed co listed in sgx earns more than a mil a year excluding bonus.He is only 39.
Their pay all shown in annual report just need to know where to look.

[Musicwhiz]

Well, he is "only" a CFO in an unlisted company, hence he gets paid less than a listco CFO I guess. Maybe this column should interview all these CFOs since its more or less certain that they earn fat salaries!

[KopiKat]

I have observed many of the owner (cum manager) controlled listco, including S-Chips, hiring CFOs in their 20s. I doubt they'd be earning even more than $10k/mth (if you check AR/IPO prospectus, a band is used eg. <$250k or <$500k, which may give you the impression of hi salary for the CFO). I also doubt that this CFO was hired due to their being tops in their class / work but rather, the owner-manager need someone who'll more likely not question orders in too much details...

I did have a very close friend who used to work in a listco as a CFO. He assumed that 'huge' role in his late 20s. Most of the time, the listco was reporting little or no earnings but the owner-managers continued to be well rewarded. My understanding is this friend wasn't that well paid and he finally called it quits to join a smallish unlisted co. He does seem a lot happier and appear richer (impression only) when I last bumped into him.

I also had actual data of the pay of a CFO in a Japanese MNC when I was still working. That's why I commented earlier that usually, Japanese MNCs are known to be bad paymasters. Perhaps they'd changed or the rate of pay inflation had gone up a lot since!

I guess we may have to reference the Revenue / Profit of a co. (listed or unlisted) to better estimate their pay structure. Not the Title.

[Jared Seah]

Spot on!

It's reading beyond the numbers instead of just using 1 sample and extrapolate to all samples with the same "title".

A CEO of a 1 million turnover company is same same but different from a 1 billion turnover company.

The same reason we treat penny stocks and blue-chip stocks differently even though they may share the same P/E...

In retail industry, we also avoid Japanese retailers for the same reasons you have highlighted