Ron Sim. — The Straits Times
SINGAPORE: The man whose name is synonymous with Osim massage chairs is always on the hunt for new opportunities, and Ron Sim’s eyes may well land on you as he seeks to add new brands to his business.
He is on the lookout for those who are young, daring and hungry for success.
The 65-year-old founder and executive chairman of V3 Group, which owns Osim, said in an exclusive interview that he is looking to add a few more brands in wellness and entertainment to the V3 family.
The group now has 11 brands, including TWG Tea and bakeries Old Seng Choong and Cat and the Fiddle.
Without giving details, he said plans are in the initial stages.
“Singapore brands are now more valuable. It is whether Singapore enterprises are hungry enough and daring enough to take the plunge to grow regionally and globally. This is the time,” he said.
“So, we should be looking for young companies, young people who are daring, hungry, have aspirations, and support them.”
The entrepreneur and billionaire – Forbes estimates his net worth to be around US$1.5bil – cited Singapore’s small domestic market as a key reason why local firms find it hard to grow.
“You have to create the external domestic market and build on that,” said Sim, who did exactly that.
In 1979, he started R Sim Trading, which sold a wide assortment of household goods. The firm opened its first store here in 1980, and in 1983, he opened the first of more than 400 global retail Osim stores.
The business was hit hard by Singapore’s first post-independence recession in 1985, but he went on to open the first Osim store in Hong Kong in 1986 before making his way to other places, including Taiwan, Malaysia and the Chinese mainland.
Osim was listed on the Singapore Exchange in 2000, but delisted in 2016.
A reason for the delisting was that there were bigger markets overseas.
He described New York as the biggest casino in the world and Hong Kong as a mini casino. “As a big casino, you attract more players and you become more vibrant,” he said.
He twice sought a listing in Hong Kong, in 2017 and 2022.
Hong Kong was chosen as it is the gateway to the Chinese mainland and because China is the group’s biggest market.
However, both listing attempts did not materialise.
He recalled: “The first time when I tried to list in Hong Kong, I wanted to list V3 Brands, which consisted of all the brands I had then. We got full approval. The bank gave us a valuation but finally, when we were going to list, it lowered the valuation.
“I might have spent millions in the process but I’m not going to list. Why would I want to list if the valuation has changed?”
History repeated itself when Sim tried to list V3 Brands Asia, which comes under V3 Brands, in Hong Kong in 2022.
While market conditions were not optimum, he said: “If you put a valuation on the table, I expect it to be as is. You don’t pitch high and at the final point you sell low.”
Asked what lessons he learnt from the two episodes, he said Hong Kong’s stock market is more vibrant and greater in volume than Singapore’s.
Market players have long whispered that Singapore has a dearth of home-grown companies that have listed on major overseas exchanges.
It begs the question: Are local companies just not competitive enough to be in the global market?
Sim disagrees.
He said local companies have access to Asean markets, but they might not be familiar brands, so they face more challenges and have more work to do.
“Size counts, volume counts. The reason why the US is so powerful is its market size; it’s not because it’s competitive,” he said.
For a company to thrive, there must be continuous innovation, he said, adding that Osim, for instance, had at least two new products every year for the last 40 years.
Besides having a good product, which is the basis for success, businesses must have a good concept.
Patience is also important. In TWG Tea’s case, Sim had provided seed funding about 17 years ago.
Bacha Coffee, which V3 owns, opened its first store in Changi Airport in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Sim said it recorded two years of losses. It was reported to have finally turned a profit in 2023.
The brand has grown in the past two years, with presence in places such as Malaysia, South Korea and Dubai. It is slated to open in Paris in 2024.
“I think Singapore companies must be more daring and must have more foresight. They must think they are equal to or even better than anyone else,” Sim said.
He urged companies to have more appetite for risk-taking. “If you don’t take the shot, you lose that shot and it’s as good as failing.”
So would he take a shot at listing again?
“At this point in time, the market is unfavourable in my view, but certainly, we have invested in our company and there’ll be a time when we go back to the market,” he said.Osim, along with other brands, comes under V3 Brands, which is the key revenue generator of the group. — The Straits Times/ANN
