With his showmanship and maverick ideas, Ryan Gwee is no stranger to controversy. The latest venture by the group managing director of ZACD is the “Wow Singapore” pop-up store, which will be set up in a series of road shows in the six fastest-growing cities across China. They include Chengdu, Xi’an, Wuhan, Changsha and Guiyang.
The inaugural event was held in Chongqing at end-July. Two 40ft containers and a 20ft container were converted into the Wow Singapore pop-up store and were placed at Jiefongbei Square, the busiest part of the Chongqing CBD.
The response to the pop-up store was much more than what Gwee had anticipated. “I was expecting 500 to 1,000 people to walk in each day,” says the 40-year-old, who looks 10 years younger. “But we had 5,000 to 6,000 people every day.”
Partners at the inaugural Wow Singapore pop-up store in Chongqing (from left): Gwee; Sim Mong Teck of Sim Mong Teck & Partners; Dr Beng Teck Liang, CEO of Singapore Medical Group; and Dora Chng, general manager (property sales & marketing), GuocoLand Singapore
Partners in the event included developer GuocoLand, prominent lawyer Sim Mong Teck and healthcare provider Singapore Medical Group. To draw people to the pop-up store, there was a disc jockey playing music all day and distribution of free gifts such as Super Group’s instant coffee mix and Prima’s famous laksa paste.
ZACD even got the endorsement of the Singapore Tourism Board and International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) “It was a publicity event to showcase the best of Singapore,” says Gwee.
The group is even collaborating with travel agencies in these cities. As the response from the road show has been overwhelming, Gwee is starting to get a little worried. “We’ve just done one city — Chongqing — and hundreds have signed up for a trip to Singapore,” he says. “The number is growing daily. And these are high-net-worth clients, not random visitors to the booth.”
Gwee has even planned the itinerary, which will include tours of GuocoLand’s projects, durian parties, free health screening by Singapore Medical Group and legal advice on property purchases and conveyancing by Sim Mong Teck & Partners. “The Chinese are mainly interested in three things — education, health and investment, especially real-estate investment,” he says.
Gwee speaking to the press in Chongqing at the launch of the Wow Singapore pop-up store
‘Getting new clients’
The series of pop-up stores in China is a vehicle for acquiring new clients, according to Gwee. The cost is estimated to be at least $250,000 per weekend in each city. “To sustain your business, you have to keep growing your client base — it’s the lifeblood of any business,” he says. “And which country has the biggest population of consumers? China.”
After the road shows in each city, ZACD will also set up a representative office there to follow through with interested parties. The China head office is in Shanghai, where Gwee is located. He continues to split his time between Shanghai, where he has lived for the past five years, and Singapore, where he spends three days a week.
Gwee knows China well as he was head of private banking in China for Standard Chartered in 2011, and dealt with ultra-high-net-worth investors, he says. Prior to that, he was head of relationship management for Southeast Asia and key partnerships at Standard Chartered Private Banking and based in Hong Kong.
Before joining ZACD as an equity partner and group managing director in October 2015, Gwee was CEO of private-equity group Asia Capital Pioneers Group in Hong Kong, where the group has more than US$1 billion ($1.36 billion) in assets under management.
“At the time, the principals of the private-equity firm wanted to diversify out of Hong Kong and allocate funds to Southeast Asia,” recounts Gwee.
The pop-up store in Chongqing attracted 5,000 to 6,000 visitors a day over one weekend
Joining forces
That was when Gwee thought of Stanley Yeo, ZACD’s founder, who obtained a fund management license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2011. Yeo and his wife Kain Sim, who are also co-founders of real-estate agency SLP International, have been personal friends with Gwee for the past 17 years. “We go back a long way,” Gwee says.
He remembers the couple when they first started SLP as a real-estate agency that specialised in the industrial space. At the time, SLP’s office was in an old industrial building in Bukit Batok and it had just half a dozen agents. “They were thinking and strategising how to sell 10 industrial units each month just to make ends meet,” he recounts.
Back in 2001, banks were reluctant to provide financing for strata industrial purchases. Gwee was only in his early 20s and the youngest branch manager at an international consumer bank. According to Gwee, he was one of the first to convince his bank to offer loans to SLP’s clients. The next few weekends, Gwee, together with his colleagues and the agents, went to Bukit Batok, Woodlands and even Ubi to distribute flyers of the industrial properties that SLP was marketing. “You have to work like that if you want to get results,” he says. “It’s the classic case of having the banker and realtor joined at the hip to achieve success.”
That marked the first of many collaborations between SLP and Gwee. Over the years, Gwee also saw how the SLP founders progressed as their business grew. Yeo used to drive an old Toyota Harrier that kept breaking down. He then upgraded to a newer model and now drives a Porsche Cayenne. The couple, who initially lived in an HDB flat in Bukit Batok, upsized to a private condo and then a landed home.
The 40ft containers turned pop-up store in Chongqing
Streamlining ZACD
ZACD was initially set up as an educational fund for Yeo and Sim’s two sons, Zachary and Darius. It started with $165,000 in 2005. Today, it is worth $75 million.
Over the years, ZACD has also launched 33 private-equity real-estate funds. Many had initially started as club deals among friends investing primarily in development projects. However, the investments involved became so large that ZACD applied for, and obtained, a fund management licence in 2011.
The group also successfully raised $280 million for its Asia Pacific Real Estate Opportunistic (ARO) Fund Series II. The fund has made several offers for properties such as a prime condominium block and data centres in Singapore.
Gwee’s vision is to position ZACD as an investment firm and integrated service provider that offers financial and real-estate agency services. “Imagine a bank and a major property agency as one entity,” he says.
He is also working hard to transform ZACD from a traditional SME into a corporation with proper systems in place, with an eye towards a public listing. “A lot of changes have taken place,” says Gwee, who has been instrumental in introducing the changes.
ZACD Group will be streamlined into different businesses — ZACD Posh (for Property One-Stop Haven), ZACD Financial Services and the new ZACD Real Wealth Academy, which offers a 10-day masterclass in all aspects of investing.
“Everything I’ve been doing since I came on board in October has been in my blueprint after six months of due diligence in the company,” says Gwee. And that includes the pop-up stores in China, he adds.
This article appeared in The Edge Property pullout, Issue 744 (Sep 5, 2016) of The Edge Singapore.