Stitching up a broken SMG

THE remarkable restoration of once ailing Singapore Medical Group (SMG), listed on Singapore's Catalist, may well have been guided by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery that, at its core, appreciates beauty in things broken.

The group was "haemorrhaging" and "very broken" in 2013 when its new owners - plus then newly-installed chief executive Beng Teck Liang - stitched together a three-year plan to mend the business.

"SMG was very broken at that point - things were so bad, morale was low and doctors were leaving. But it had good bones . . . it just needed more meat," says the doctor-turned-techie -turned-businessman in an interview with The Business Times.