Tycoon Oei is all the talk in Singapore

Tycoon Oei is all the talk in Singapore

Jake Lloyd-Smith, Associated Press/Singapore

He's the son of one of Indonesia's most prominent businessmen. He
received part of his education at the hands of China's Red Guards
in the 1960s. He's now a wine-sipping, smartly dressed tycoon
who's been the talk of Singapore this week.

Oei Hong Leong has been splashed all over the city-state's
media: smiling over a surprise business deal and looking somber
during a gritty libel trial.

He's suing businessman David Ban for remarks he made during
the prolonged and heated tussle over Singapore steel company
NatSteel two years ago. Ban ultimately triumphed over Oei, who's
also suing Ban's company, the local journalist who reported the
comments, and her newspaper.

High-profile libel cases are not unusual in Singapore, but
they're more often brought by government ministers against their
political opponents.

Oei was cross-examined intensively this week, parrying barbed
inquiries from Davinder Singh, Ban's lawyer and one of the city-
state's most admired -- and feared -- courtroom players in the
city-state.

"I'm willing to sacrifice everything for my principles,
including my life," Oei said Thursday to a packed courtroom.
"Only when someone attacks my integrity will I get very angry ...
I am something like a porcupine."

The dapper 56-year-old Oei is a local hero in Singapore, a
rare phenomenon in the tightly run Southeast Asian country of 4
million that's been ruled by the People's Action Party for nearly
four decades.

Often likened to the influential U.S. invester Warren Buffett,
Oei enjoys a near-cult following among Singapore's mom-and-pop
investors, who track his stock market investments closely.
Unlike most of his fans, however, Oei was born to money.

His father, Eka Tjipta Widjaja, emigrated to Indonesia from
southern China in 1930, and carved out a fortune by trading
coconut oil, making paper and supplying the country's armed
forces.

In the 1960s, Oei was packed off to the family's ancestral
homeland to broaden his education. But in China during that
tumultuous decade, he was caught up in the whirlwind of the
Cultural Revolution, plucked from his classroom, and sent to the
countryside to work alongside the peasants.

He has said the manual labor made him hardier, gave him a
deeper insight into the workings of the mainland and - in the
long-run - forged a powerful bond between him and Chinese
officials.

After two years in the fields, he swapped hoes and plows for a
slot at the family business, Sinar Mas, in Indonesia. In 1977, he
moved to Singapore, acquired permanent residency four years after
that, and set about making his own deals.

Oei's trademark - a little like Buffett's - is to spot
undervalued assets, dive in and parlay control into financial
rewards. He is known for being both a short-term trader and a
businessman who sticks to an enterprise for years, and has
bought, sold and traded dozens of companies.

Oei spent several years living in Hong Kong -- and forged
deals across the border in a fast-rising China, where he has an
extensive network of contacts, a considerable advantage in a
country where connections are vital. But after he was roughed up
in 1999 outside his apartment, Oei -- suspecting a kidnapping bid
-- moved back to his adopted home in Singapore.

The tycoon's newest business venture is Informatics, a
troubled Singapore business education company. Oei reckons he can
turn it around, and has forged an unlikely alliance with Vincent
Tan, a Malaysian gaming tycoon, to try and save the loss-making
company, which is being probed by Singapore police for misstating
its accounts.

During one of the packed shareholders' meetings during the
NatSteel takeover saga, one of Oei's many local admirers, an
elderly man, said with a mixture of affection and awe: "He is a
smart guy, Mr. Oei. We have not heard the last of him yet." The
comment proved to be spot on.

GetAP 1.00 -- JUL 9, 2004 07:38:40