More than just a paint job

JUST like how a cowboy would roam the wild wild west on his trusty steed, Teo Yeow Soon did just that in his S$3,000 pickup truck in the late 1980s, busting his chops working on small-time paint jobs. After all, that was pretty much the skills that the then 25-year-old picked up from his younger days of helping out his uncle with odd jobs. Unknown to Mr Teo, he was layering his success coat by coat working under paint manufacturers including Nippon Paints and the former ICI Paints.

From a one-man show handling what was described as "some painting of buildings", Vigcon Construction was incorporated in 1990 and has continued to grow since. In 1996, Mr Teo's older brother, Teo Tiow Guan, left his engineering job to help out at the company and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fast-forward 18 years, the younger Mr Teo, 51, is now the managing director of Vigcon Construction while the older Mr Teo, 52, is its executive director. Together, the two bespectacled brothers now oversee about 230 staff, running a company that recorded a S$90 million turnover in 2013.