The tycoon who kidnappers shun

Riding high: The late “Mr Honda of Malaysia” testing a motorbike with which he is forever associated.

THE late Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew, whose rags-to-riches story never seems to bore anybody, is a legendary tycoon philanthropist that had even awed Penang-based kidnappers.

At the peak of kidnapping activities in the early 1990s, Boon Siew could walk freely without bodyguards and drink in a Penang downtown coffee shop every morning before he went to office, while other tycoons in Malaysia had to surround themselves with tight security.

“The kidnappers know who I am. They know that if they kidnap me, I would not be able to do many charities and help the poor,” said Loh, at an interview with this writer for the Chinese Forbes magazine in February 1992 in his bungalow in Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah in Penang, which is now being turned into a museum.

In this first and last interview he gave to the media, Loh related in Hokkien his early struggles after arriving in Penang from China penniless at the age of 13 in a rat-infested ship that had braved the South China Sea.

As an illiterate, Loh could only do hard labour after arriving in 1929. He displayed his foresight when he chose to be a mechanic apprentice instead of a sedan chair puller that demanded no skill. At night, he would wash filthy busses dotted with cow dung for 10 cents per vehicle at the riverside of Prangin Road. During meal time, he would squat by the roadside, eating plain porridge and salted vegetables.

“During those days, sedan chair puller could earn eight dollars a month and mechanic only three dollars. My supervisor said I was hopeless in choosing three dollars. I got angry. Instead of sleeping in the mechanic shop, I chose to sleep in the smelly buses at night,” he said.

Through sheer hardwork and intelligence, the frugal lad saved enough to buy secondhand buses at 18, and from there, he became the owner of Penang’s Yellow Bus Company. But all his properties were confiscated during the Japanese occupation.

Boon Siew was determined to rebuild his business after 1945. But the major breakthrough for him came after he obtained the dealership for Japan’s Honda motorcycle. His mechanic skill came in handy. When he was on a sight-seeing trip in a taxi in Osaka, he heard the smooth engine sound of a Hondo motorcycle. He stopped the rider and checked the make and structure of the motorbike despite the reluctance shown by the Japanese. He then went to Honda to negotiate for a distributorship in Malaysia.

His roaring success in marketing Honda motorcycles and later motorcars won him the title “Mr Honda of Malaysia”. Meanwhile, Boon Siew went on to set up other businesses through his investment company, Oriental Holdings. He also bought land and properties. By early 1990s, he became the biggest landowner in Penang and possibly owned half of Langkawi island.

In managing companies, Boon Siew was known to be extremely strict with accounting. He told this writer: “I can use my money to personally treat you to a meal of several hundred ringgit, but in company accounts, every sen must be accounted for.”

Before his death in February 1995, Boon Siew’s interests had spanned from the manufacture and sale of Honda vehicles, making of automotive parts and building materials to property development, hotels and resorts, plantation, plastics – locally and overseas.

For entrepreneurs, his story is inspiring. But for the ordinary Penang people, he is fondly remembered as a philanthropist. Lam Wah Ee Hospital, which gives free treatment to the poor, is still being financed by the Lohs.

Boon Siew had six children – four girls and two boys – from two marriages. He appointed all his daughters as directors when he formed Boon Siew Sdn Bhd in 1957 as he believed that they should all have a fair share of the family fortune. Later on, his sons-in-law became directors as well.