Unbound by the rules of business

Singapore

TO follow his calling in life, Singaporean businessman Edward Ong said he has made business decisions that are often unconventional and against the grain of logic. In 1994, he discontinued the construction business under his family-run OCK Group and ventured into hospitality, converting a swamp land in Malaysia's Sabah state into Sutera Harbour Resort. This ran counter to the macroeconomic conditions back then - Sabah's economy was growing at a much slower pace than Malaysia's more developed west coast.

Just as the project was about to be completed, the Asian financial crisis sent the ringgit on a dive, triggering hefty currency losses in one day as the resort's borrowings were in US dollars, and sending a potential investor scurrying away.