When Mr Iain Ewing arrived in Singapore in 1985, he had just C$25,000 (about S$33,727 at the current exchange rate) to his name. Fast forward to today, and the Canadian and Singapore permanent resident is now sitting on a net worth of $20 million.
Working out the math in his office on Joo Chiat Road, the chief executive officer of management training consultancy Ewing Communications said hard work, savings and prudent investments have enabled him to consistently double his wealth every two years in the past 23 years.
Mr Ewing, 63, recalled that he visited Singapore during a stopover just to sample Newton Circus' chilli crab. That first visit led to a job here and later to Ewing Communications, which he set up in 1990. His company now owns 500 training modules and provides consultancy to firms such as Cisco Systems, Siemens, IBM and Microsoft.
Besides his business, he invests mainly in stocks and properties in Singapore and Canada. He set up his stock portfolio in 1987 with a modest $100,000.
The money came from savings he accumulated from securing external training contracts, with the approval of his then employer, the Singapore Polytechnic, where he worked as a media producer for four years. Through these contracts, he was able to earn enough to have a surplus that he could invest.
'Instead of resting during my tea breaks, I made cold calls to government bodies and statutory boards to secure training contracts for myself,' he said.
As part of his employment terms, he had to give 40 per cent of his earnings from these external contracts to the polytechnic.
Still, his resourcefulness earned for him an extra $10,000 to $20,000 a month, which he saved and put into the stock market via blue-chip shares like Singapore Airlines (SIA), SingTel and the banks. Armed with a buy-and-hold strategy, he has managed to enlarge his stock portfolio alone to some $1.5 million - and he gets about $70,000 in dividends yearly.
He believes his wealth will continue to grow because he plans to work for the next 30 years, if that is possible. Besides, he is confident that his son, Tejas, 27, a consultant and director at his firm, is astute enough to handle the family's finances and his business. After all, he has involved Tejas in financial decisions since his son was 15.
There is one regret, though. Divorced in 1985, he still harbours the hope of finding the right woman to share his life with.
'If I can find the right girl and get married and have a kid, I'll do it tomorrow,' he said.
Q Why did you decide to be an entrepreneur?
I started my first 'business' when I was 10 years old, in the summer, selling lemonade from a little stand at the side of the road in front of my parent's house in Ottawa, Canada. And I started my first company as soon as I graduated from university, when I was 21. So, I guess I would have to say that I never consciously chose to be an entrepreneur; the entrepreneurial spirit chose me.
Q What are your money habits?
Very simple: Pay as you go and live a simple life, so you don't get addicted to expensive luxuries. I use credit cards, but I pay in full every month.
Q Are you an aggressive or conservative investor?
Conservative and always looking to build passive income through underlying assets that will have long-term value. I never try to 'beat the market'. I also never buy stocks on margins, so I don't have to worry when the market goes down.
I believe in staying invested in blue chips such as the banks, Singapore Press Holdings, SIA, Keppel, Sembcorp, the Singapore Exchange and Robinson, which provide good passive income. When I stock-pick, I rely on newspapers and talk to firms, some of which are my clients. I look at their current worth and their dividend income. I monitor my stocks four times a year.
People are happier if they don't look at their portfolios too often because there are always missed opportunities. So, I don't worry about average returns. I am more interested in knowing that I can live well from only the dividends we get from our investments, and leave the underlying assets to Tejas when I leave my body behind and go on to the next stage.
I don't invest in unit trusts because they rely on the expertise of third parties. I prefer to do the investing myself.
Q What financial planning have you done for yourself?
I have involved my son, Tejas, my only child, in my financial planning since he was 15, and we do all our financial planning for ourselves.
We have a total plan for every asset in our portfolio and a clear strategy on how to grow the portfolio. The strategy includes investing in properties in countries like Singapore, Canada and the United States, as well as buying stocks here, in Canada, the US, France, Germany and Australia.
Q What are your property investments?
I have a condominium in Vancouver, which was purchased in 2004 for C$300,000. With the appreciation of the Canadian dollar and the price rise in Vancouver, it has doubled in value. The annual rental yield is about 5 per cent, excluding the appreciation of the Canadian dollar. I also own land and a share in a couple of shopping malls in Alberta and Ontario.
In Singapore, I own a 2,400 sq ft condo at Upper Thomson Road, where I live, and a shophouse. The condo was bought in 1992 for $750,000, and it's worth about $1.8 million now.
Q Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
When my father was 29, he saw a lot of people lose everything during the stock market crash of 1929. As a result, he remained overly conservative as an investor for the rest of his life.
Although he generated a lot of income as a surgeon in Canada, he kept most of his net worth in cash, and he did not leave a significant estate when he died. He also never involved his children in investment planning when we were growing up. I have tried to learn from his mistakes. On the plus side, both he and my mother taught me to live a simple life and to pay as you go. I thank them for that.
Q Your best investment to date?
My best investment to date has been my shophouse in Joo Chiat Road, which I bought for $1.5 million in 2001. I made a lot of money during the dot.com boom through my training conferences, and everyone was telling me to buy 'clicks, not bricks', and to get 'Internet ready'.
Instead, I bought bricks. Now, when I see how the cost of renting an office is escalating in Singapore, I feel very lucky. I can sleep better at night knowing that no one can raise the rent because I own the building. The shophouse, which is also my office, is worth about $3 million now.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on April 27, 2008
