HAPPENINGS

SINGAPORE – A study by US-based wealth consultancy The Williams Group found that most families tend to lose their fortune by the third generation.

The 20-year project – started in the late 1990s and covering 3,200 families – showed that 70 per cent of wealthy families lost their riches by the second generation, and 90 per cent by the third.

Indeed, an ancient Chinese proverb – “fu bu guo san dai” (wealth does not pass three generations) – says as much.

Goldbell Group chief executive Arthur Chua – a third-generation leader of the home-grown commercial and industrial vehicles giant – is not fazed. The 42-year-old says the proverb should be read in its entirety.

“Dao de chuan shi dai, chuan fu bu guo san dai,” he says. “Which means if you pass on wealth alone, it does not pass three generations, but if you pass on values, it can last 10 generations.”

Mr Chua runs the family business with his older brother Alex, 44, who heads GB Helios, Goldbell’s financial services arm. Their younger brother Andrew, 36, is not in the family business.

Their 69-year-old father William Chua, chairman of the group, started Goldbell in 1980 with their late grandfather Chua Kim Cheng, who had a logistics company and a construction business dating back to the 1960s.

Besides Singapore, Goldbell is present in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan. Its annual revenue is estimated to be well over $100 million.

Mr Arthur Chua, however, is reluctant to talk about numbers. Instead, he stresses his point about values. “Passing on the right values will allow wealth to last past 10 generations. The values our family lives by are humility, compassion and empathy.”

He cites an example: “When the company was in quite a dire financial situation in the 1985 recession, my dad bit the bullet and did not retrench anyone. And on the advice of my grandfather, he only reduced salaries, promising that staff would be compensated when the company rebounded.”

Because of that, Mr Chua says Goldbell was able to benefit when the economy recovered strongly in the following years, and demand for trucks soared.

Its competitors, on the other hand, could not ride the rebound as they had shaved their sales staff drastically.

Hence, instead of measuring success by “how much new wealth is created and accumulated”, Mr Chua says it is more meaningful “to pass on values to the next generation”.

“And the next generation may not be the immediate family, but future generations of people working in the company,” he adds.

Mr Alex Chua chimes in: “Without what my dad has built, and without what my brother has added on, and all the trust they have gained over the last 40 years, there is no way there can be a GB Helios.”

Unlike his younger brother, who joined the family business in 2008 after graduating, Mr Alex Chua forged his own career in banking before deciding to join Goldbell in 2012, and starting up its financial services arm a few years later.

To date, GB Helios is estimated to have disbursed more than $1 billion in loans.

Interestingly, private passenger car loans account for the biggest portion of its portfolio. “Retail buyers make up 90 per cent of that,” he says, adding that the firm is supplying loans to “almost every authorised distributor… and 300 used-car dealers”.

GB Helios does mortgage loans as well. In 2019, it launched a private debt investment platform called Goldbell Evolution Network. It also has a unit in the Philippines which does supply chain financing. “We have everything the banks have, except for trade financing,” Mr Alex Chua notes.

Today, GB Helios contributes some 20 per cent to group EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), although neither brother would reveal what Goldbell Group’s EBITDA was.

“We built this business from nothing nine years ago,” Mr Alex Chua says of GB Helios.

As for its established core businesses, Goldbell continues to be a market leader in vehicle leasing and distribution. It has more than 8,500 industrial vehicles such as forklifts on lease, and annual sales of Mitsubishi commercial vehicles trail only Toyota’s.

In addition, it has a passenger car rental and leasing arm which offers a wide range of brands and models.

Like his older brother, Mr Arthur Chua has also started several new businesses he hopes will take Goldbell beyond this generation.

New ventures include its Swat mobility unit, which uses an algorithm to cater to dynamic demand of buses; and XSquare, which offers a suite of intelligent warehouse solutions (including autonomous forklifts).

In 2021, Goldbell bought electric car-sharing operator BlueSG, and committed to invest $70 million to make it profitable and to expand it.

Currently, these new businesses “are all losing money”, Mr Arthur Chua admits. “But I hope that by end-2029, they will contribute 30 per cent to EBITDA,” he adds. “That is my five-year target.”

How do the two brothers operate, since it is the younger one who is group chief executive?

Mr Arthur Chua says his older brother – whom he refers to as “gor” (big brother) several times in the interview – does not report to him. He adds that their two businesses are run independently, although “we have visibility of each other’s operations”.

“Over dinner, if we have a problem, we would ask each other for advice,” he adds. “But our two businesses are quite different.”

Goldbell’s businesses aside, Mr Alex Chua has another passion – food and beverage. He owns a chain of restaurants which includes Kulto (Spanish), Cenzo (Australian-Italian), Barrio (Spanish) and Chicco (Italian).

“My love for food actually stems from my dad,” the older brother says. “When we were growing up, every Sunday, he would take us to a new restaurant for dinner. It didn’t have to be high-end, but was always something new.

“And when we came of age, he would introduce wine or sake to us. That’s how this appreciation for F&B came about.”

Somewhere in Goldbell Towers – the company headquarters in Scotts Road – is an expansive refrigerated wine cellar. Mr Alex Chua himself has another wine collection in London.

The two brothers are married. Mr Arthur Chua has two children – a seven-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy – while Mr Alex Chua has four – three boys aged eight, four and two, and a girl aged six.

Will they be next in line to lead Goldbell? Mr Alex Chua says: “There’s now a foundation on which better people can come in to build upon. Might not be our kids. It could be anyone. It’d be hubris to think that we’re the best people to run the business to infinity.”

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