Me & My Money Series (Sunday Times)

[Musicwhiz]

Imported rich, who bought a GCB recently. If you notice the last question, it's not "Which car do you drive", it's "Which car are you chauffered in"!! Wow these interviews are really getting into more and more high-net-worth people.

The Straits Times
Apr 22, 2012
High-flier enjoys the good life
Chief executive of tyre maker Omni believes spending more is the spur to earning more

By Joyce Teo

Home for the past two years for Mr G. S. Sareen, 45, and his family has been a sprawling landed property in Binjai Park.

The president and chief executive of tyre maker Omni United, which exports to the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, Africa and the Middle East, was scouting for a house around early 2010.

When his fengshui master from India told him the good class bungalow was perfect for him, he sealed the deal in no time, buying it from Amtel group boss Sudhir Gupta.

The price was $28 million.

'I believe in fengshui. The important thing is to believe in something,' says Mr Sareen.

'It's better to believe in something crazy than nothing. It's important to have a faith.'

A former Indian army officer, Mr Sareen came to Singapore to start his own business in 1994. He ran and sold two businesses before starting Omni United in 2003.

In its April issue, Fortune magazine named him one of Asia's 25 Hottest People in Business. He was one of two entrepreneurs from Singapore on the list, the other being Ms Olivia Lum of Hyflux.

Still, things were not always this rosy for Mr Sareen. Just around a decade ago, he went through a bad financial patch and was living without a car or domestic help.

'So, we had to literally start from scratch,' he said.

Now a Singapore citizen, he has been married to Ms Rewa Sareen, 44, for 22 years. They have two boys - Hanut, 18, and Sumer, 13.

Q: Are you a spender or saver?

I'm more of a spender, mostly on entertainment, travel and vacations and also art... but what I enjoy most is being able to share those experiences with friends and family.

I would say that if you have $100, you should give away $10, save $20, and spend $70. If you don't spend, you won't have the urge to earn more to sustain your lifestyle.

For instance, once you have flown first-class, you will have to work really hard to make sure you can continue to fly first-class. But, the only way to be happy is to keep your expectations under control.

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

I don't have any debts. I charge an average of $30,000 a month to my credit cards, for both business and pleasure expenses.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself and your family?

I'm a cautious investor and always believe in taking calculated risks and a diversified approach.

I invest in equities, bonds, mutual funds and, most importantly, in my business, which is still on a rapid growth path and giving me enough returns.

My wife and I fully own Omni. It is my priority when it comes to capital investment for expansion plans and so on. I have private bankers who manage my investment portfolios. I don't like debts so I don't like to leverage too much.

Everything in my life is fully insured - my business, my property, life and health.

I am looking at buying a US property because prices are low now. It may be a vineyard in Napa Valley. I want to go there with my family and enjoy it.

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

My father was a very honest civil servant. He was very frugal and would tell me to 'spend only what you can afford to'.

I was born in a village in Madhya Pradesh and I had two siblings.

My sister is now living in Dubai. My brother died in a road accident at the age of 27 in 1989, two months after he got married.

In 1971, when my mum was 31 and my dad was 36, she met with an accident in South Africa and became totally paralysed.

My mum, who now lives with me, has been like that since then but my father, who died in 2005, took great care of her and never remarried.

He would take her to the movies, to the circus, to attend weddings and to visit me in Singapore.

My father told me there are two things I can give my kids and that is education and to set a good example.

When I was 12 and told my dad I wanted to go to boarding school, he said it was a great idea but where is the money, so go and figure it out. He hinted to me to go to my grandmother and so I did.

She paid half the money and my dad paid half. Many years later, I learnt that my father had given the money to my grandmother to give to me. It was his way of making me chart my life.

I was not the brightest kid around but then, bright kids have their limitations because they are afraid of failure.

For me, I want to push destiny. The only limitation is the human being himself. Human beings can achieve amazing feats.

Q: What property do you own?

A 35,500 sq ft good class bungalow in Bukit Timah that I bought in January 2010 for $28 million. I believe its value has gone up substantially.

We moved in in May that year after quite a lot of renovations. Initially, it was a little bit overwhelming but now it's okay. It's great as we always have guests in the house.

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

A commissioned painting of my wife by American painter Richard Johnson. I would rather not reveal the price but I have no regrets. It is one of the most beautiful paintings in my collection.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

I have no plans to retire yet. I like the Confucius quote: 'If you enjoy what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.'

Q: Home is now...

The house in Binjai Park. We used to live in a 6,000 sq ft penthouse at Pebble Bay, which I bought in 2005 and sold in 2010 for a profit of $2.8 million.

Q: I am chauffeured in...

A black Jaguar XJC.

joyceteo@sph.com.sg

-------------------------------------------
WORST AND BEST BETS

Q: What's your worst investment to date?

I invested 200,000 Indian rupees in an Indian listed stock back in 1999 as it was going up very quickly. But it crashed shortly after that as it was not a fundamentally strong company.

I had only about 500,000 rupees then and yet I chose to put about 40 per cent of it into something that I had no clue about.

After that lesson and up till today, I don't invest in complex products or things that I don't understand.

Q: And your best?

I bought a significant chunk of Citibank shares at below $1.40 a share in 2010 and sold it at close to $5 a share about six months later.

Apart from this, Omni United has to be my best investment. I invested US$3 million in it when I first started the business in 2003. It had a turnover of US$7 million then. Today, it has a US$180 million (S$226 million) turnover.

[Temperament]

Wow!
He sounds so simple to be rich. Where is the problem in the journey?

[shanrui_91]

I think there's a better article on The Sunday Times today called "From Toilet Cleaner to CEO"

[Stocker]

How many people really tell the truth to strangers ?

[brattzz]

Just read and analysis carefully the details, it's articles like this that tells us we have to be alert..

[Stocker]

Higher class TCSS ?

[FFNow]

I think there's a better article on The Sunday Times today called "From Toilet Cleaner to CEO"

I agree! This article is much more inspiring!

[Musicwhiz]

Here's the article!

The Straits Times
Apr 22, 2012
From toilet cleaner to CEO
Forced to leave school at 14, Moonshi Mohsenruddin took on various jobs before building up his own IT business

By Wong Kim Hoh

According to the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the most widely used personality sorter in the world, Mr Moonshi Mohsenruddin is an ENTJ.

Of 16 possible psychological types, ENTJs (extraversion, intuition, thinking, judgment) are among the rarest, accounting for just 2 per cent to 5 per cent of those tested.

Confident and driven, they are original thinkers and dynamic problem solvers with a natural tendency to marshal and direct. On the flip side, they can be arrogant, insensitive, even dictatorial. Famous ENTJs include Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, industrialist Warren Buffett and former American Idol judge Simon Cowell.

Mr Moonshi, founder and head honcho of IT company CommGate, believes the test nails down his personality.

Then again, perhaps only a fearless, go-getting perfectionist could have started out in life as a toilet cleaner and moved on to become the chief executive officer of a thriving computer firm.

The articulate 36-year-old is the eldest of three children. His father, a former policeman, uprooted the family from their four-room Yishun flat to Johor Baru in the late 1980s to start a frozen meat and poultry business.

Mr Moonshi, who attended the now defunct MacRitchie and Xishan primary schools here, was doing well in a Johor school when his father's business went belly-up.

'He was cheated by his business partners,' says Mr Moonshi.

The family returned to Singapore. 'My father was very rattled by what happened; he lost hope and just withdrew into a shell,' he recalls.

His mother, who worked as a production operator, fell ill.

Then just 14, the eldest son had to leave school and take charge.

'I couldn't just sit down and expect rice to appear on the table,' he says, adding that he figured he needed at least $1,500 a month to pay the bills and keep his siblings in school.

There were not many jobs available for a dropout so he signed up with Anchor Cleaning Agency, which sent him to clean offices and factories.

'I remember being sent to this flour factory in Tuas. The windows were covered with a layer of flour and when it rained, it became so thick you had to scrape it off. It was the same thing with the factory's toilets,' he says, shaking his head at the memory. 'It was really smelly and dirty work.'

To earn more, he became a pump attendant and car washer at a Novena petrol station in the evenings. Slogging more than 15 hours daily brought home between $1,500 and $1,900 each month.

He told himself he needed to have his own business one day to break out of the poverty trap. 'I had no idea what it would be. But I told myself I needed to learn how to sell if I wanted a business.'

So he became a sales promoter next, peddling everything from water heaters to juice-makers and steam irons in department stores such as Metro and Tangs.

That brought out the showman in him and helped hone his persuasive skills. 'I'd throw juice-makers on the floor to demonstrate how hardy they were,' he recalls.

The teenager worked nights at a McDonald's outlet in Khatib, then moved on to flogging novelty T-shirts before manning a music shop - Gallery of Compact Disc - in Marina Square in 1993.

'Running the CD shop taught me one thing about selling: It's not about what you like; it's about what your customers want,' he says.

He would go to the shop early and listen to everything from Pavarotti to The Gipsy Kings and Jacky Cheung so that he was on top of his game.

'Customers just needed to hum a tune, and I could tell them the track number and the CD title,' he says with a grin. To this day, he is able to belt out Hoi Fut Tin Hong (Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies), a soulful Cantonese ballad by Hong Kong rock band Beyond.

National service changed his life. It was at the Police Academy that he met fellow trainee Benjamin Xavier Low, who introduced him to the world of computers.

'At that time, all I knew about computers were Atari and Pacman,' he says, referring to the video computer system and classic game. 'He told me about the amazing things that computers could do, like controlling traffic lights. It was as though someone turned on a light inside my head.'

His friend would pass him computer books, manuals and magazines which he devoured greedily.

'At the Police Academy, it was lights off at 9pm but I would spend at least four hours reading with a mini torch,' he says. 'I was curious and obsessed. I just wanted to figure out RAMs and motherboards and how everything worked.'

He went to great lengths to spend as much time after work as possible in the academy's computer lab to learn new software and master programming languages.

'I would always ask my senior staff sergeants or field instructors if they wanted roster lists created or letters and documents typed,' he recalls with a laugh.

After national service, he approached Altron, a computer school, for work as a computer instructor.

'I said I had no qualifications, no A levels or diploma or degree but I knew what I knew. I told them the only way for me to prove that was if they tried me out,' he says.'I'd learnt to crack software, games and codes. Somehow, I pick up computer- related stuff very fast. Sometimes, I do wonder why I know what I know.'

A week later, the school called after one of its lecturers was injured in an accident. Mr Moonshi was paid about $1,600 - less than the formally qualified instructors - but he became popular with his students.

Six months later, the school's training manager left to join a new company and asked him to go along as an IT officer.

The new company, Information Edge, was acquired by another firm, Horizon.com, half a year later and Mr Moonshi became its systems manager.

'My knowledge was better than that of many others, including graduates, because I solved real problems. I learnt by looking at a problem, thinking about it, and rolling up my sleeves to solve it.'

Soon he was made the company's pre-sales manager, helping to prepare tenders for contracts, many of which were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The 1990s were heady days for tech wizards like Mr Moonshi. He moved on to other roles - technical manager and systems manager - in several other companies.

In July 1999, he wrote an article, Linux Firewall with IPFWADM, which was a guide on implementing a network firewall for free using an open source operating system. Published on several websites including Security Focus and Linux World, it earned him kudos from the tech community.

'Overnight, I became a security guru and I received job offers from 11 companies,' he says.

He became a systems manager with WizOffice.com and was soon promoted to its IT director for Asia-Pacific. His pay jumped from $7,000 to $12,000.

'I was just 22 then,' he says.

Unfortunately, his rise was accompanied by a growing ego. By his own admission, he was 'demanding, bossy, cocky and rude'.

'A lot of people called me a sonofab***h,' he says. 'I ruffled a lot of feathers, stepped on a lot of toes.'

Real estate agent Jerry Lee, 42, a colleague at Telford Solutions, says: 'His cockiness really got on people's nerves. He was very blunt.'

By then, Mr Moonshi had amassed a sizeable portfolio of tech stocks - Oracle, Juniper et al - which had ballooned in value thanks to the dot.com boom. 'I had about half a million dollars in my portfolio from an initial investment of about $50,000,' he recalls.

He was planning to cash out on Oct 18, 2001 - when he would turn 25 - and propose to his girlfriend Angela, get married, buy a car and set up a business. 'I thought I would be set for life,' he says.

Then Sept 11, 2001 happened. He was left with $7,000 in the bank because of bad debts and big risks he had taken with margin trading on the stock market.

'That was my first major lesson about money, not to dabble with money I couldn't afford to lose unless I clearly understood the rules of the game.'

His changed circumstances meant he and Angela delayed marriage.

He started his own business, Techworx, to provide systems solutions but it did not take off, probably because many of his past business contacts thought him arrogant and did not want to have any dealings with him.

He roped in a partner but things got messier. 'It just went haywire, there was no clear demarcation of roles and duties,' he recalls.

The result was not just the end of the business in 2004 but also a long drawn-out litigation process.

'I was $500,000 poorer. It was one of the biggest tuition fees I paid to learn about myself, and what I needed to change about my thoughts, my behaviour, my beliefs, my values and what I had misunderstood about business.'

He started CommGate in 2005 with the last $3,000 he had. For more than a year, he and Angela - the Australian-educated graduate daughter of a roast duck seller and his wife - survived on $5 a day, living in a spartan rented HDB flat.

They married in 2006 and slowly built up the business, which specialises in IT infrastructure and solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises.

With offices in Singapore, India and Vietnam, the company now has an annual turnover of more than $3 million and employs nearly 40 staff. There are plans for offices in Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia.

A great believer in self-development, Mr Moonshi has attended numerous courses and credits a programme called Money and You, in particular, for turning his life around.

'Through the course's role-playing games, I got to see my real self. In everything I did, I had to win. I didn't like what I saw. No wonder people didn't want to help me in the past,' he says.

His friends testify to the change.

Mr Lee, for one, did not bother to keep in touch for more than 10 years after they parted ways.

'We bumped into each other again some years back and I could really sense a change in him. He has become really humble and down-to-earth. I would gladly call him a friend now. Before that, I'm not so sure,' he says, laughing.

Mr Tan Hock Chye, 42, a former client who is now CommGate's technical and solutions manager, says: 'He has definitely evolved. In the past, he was overly logical. Now he's more in tune with his emotions, he has done a lot of self-reflection.'

Although he can afford a car, MrMoonshi takes public transport. Home is still the five-room HDB flat in Jalan Bahagia that he and his wife bought for less than $300,000 when they got married. It is now worth about $800,000.

'We're very emotionally attached to the flat,' he says, adding that he prefers to grow his money through prudent investments.

Mr Moonshi, who is working on a book about his life, meditates daily, mostly at home and sometimes at the MacRitchie and Lower Peirce reservoirs, and is active in the community.

Among other things, he has mentored young business start-ups, taught computer literacy to inmates at Changi Prison and served as the president of ONE (Singapore), a charity dedicated to eradicating global poverty.

He has a lofty dream to build up CommGate and sell it for at least US$30 million (S$37.5 million), and to share the profits with his colleagues and all who have helped him so that they can pursue their dreams.

Describing himself today, he says: 'I am committed to mastery and I don't tolerate mediocrity. I dare to fight the good fight.'

Spoken like a true ENTJ.

kimhoh@sph.com.sg

[yeokiwi]

This guy is amazing.
He self-taught himself to learn software programming without any formal computing education.

He is highly intellectual and probably will be a whiz kid if he had gone to university.

[KopiKat]

This guy is amazing.
He self-taught himself to learn software programming without any formal computing education.

He is highly intellectual and probably will be a whiz kid if he had gone to university.

After Uni, he'd then get a regular job where the pay is high enough to deter him from taking the risk of striking out on his own (plus being enslaved by a huge Housing Mortgage) but low enough such that he'll try to learn how to invest and finally stumble on ValueBuddies in his bid to become financially free.