Letter From CEO

I grew up in the small town of Parit in Perak, about an hour’s drive from the state capital of Ipoh. My parents, who were humble, hardworking folk, had always wanted me to be self-reliant from a young age. They encouraged me to take up various part- time jobs to supplement my pocket money, hoping that I would discover a trade I could pursue for the rest of my life in the process. By the time I left school aged 17, I had found my true calling as a goldsmith’s apprentice. Although I received no pay other than my daily meals, I was immensely grateful for the opportunity to learn vital skills such as recovering gold from scrap, repairing gold jewellery, and differentiating between real and fake gold.

I improved tremendously in the 2 years I spent as an apprentice, mastering all the techniques passed on to me by the goldsmith and rising up the ranks to become the shop’s most senior employee after the goldsmith himself. It was time for me to venture out on my own; after bidding farewell to my master and my colleagues, I moved to the coastal town of Sitiawan, where I quickly found employment as a salesperson in a gold jewellery store. Having quickly distinguished myself with my skills, my knowledge, and my excellent sales record, I was approached by a local entrepreneur seeking to partner with an industry insider to set up his own store. I accepted his offer and the rest is history.

I would go on to found 3 more ventures after selling my stake in my first ever business, namely Mega Gold Marketing Enterprise in 2001 (which would become Mega Group International Sdn. Bhd. in 2006); Sinar Mega Emas Sdn. Bhd. in 2003, and Le Grand Creations Sdn. Bhd. in 2014. While all 3 businesses are thriving today, we did go through a rough patch soon after the terrorist attacks in New York on 11 September 2001. Due to the prevailing risk-off sentiment, investors flocked to safe havens, causing the price of gold to go through the roof. Within just a few weeks, our inventory costs nearly doubled, stretching our finances to the very limit.

Amidst all this chaos and uncertainty, I spied an opportunity: as gold prices were still rising, with no end in sight, we stood to greatly profifit by buying more gold and selling it off at a higher price later. The only problem with such an approach was raising enough money to purchase more gold. Happily, I was able to put my vast network of professional contacts to good use – many acquaintances who knew me and trusted in my business acumen were more than willing to loan me the necessary funds on favourable terms. With these loans, we began aggressively buying scrap gold from the East Coast to be melted down and crafted into jewellery. As we became better known to consumers, trading volumes increased dramatically: from a starting point of only 300g, we were soon purchasing up to 80kg of gold daily.

The strategy of buying scrap gold, melting it down, and crafting it into intricate jewellery to be sold to retailers and end consumers alike proved to be immensely successful – indeed, it forms our core business model to this day. Even better, my 3 current businesses – Mega Group International Sdn. Bhd., Sinar Mega Emas Sdn. Bhd., and Le Grand Creations Sdn. Bhd. – are vertically integrated to form a nearly complete gold supply chain, giving us an added advantage in terms of lower costs and greater self-suffificiency compared to the vast majority of industry peers (most of which only occupy one part of the supply chain).

Having come so far, we seek to go even further: we plan to expand our gold empire beyond Malaysia and Singapore, where we already supply 400+ jewellery brands (including several publicly-listed companies), to encompass thriving gold markets in the Middle East such as Doha and Dubai. Once that is accomplished, we intend to cement our status as one of the foremost players in the regional gold industry by conducting an IPO. We want to prove that the gold industry, which, in recent years, has been brought into disrepute by unscrupulous fifirms defaulting on their bank loans and / or scamming consumers with Ponzi schemes, can be an honest, upright net contributor to the local economy.