Author: CheckW

The Pokemon Go mobile game has been around for more than a year and the developer (Niantic) had managed to transform the global success into many stages of evolution. I must admit that I have been following this game from the beginning, even though the rest of my family have given up on it and moved on. I was fascinated about how this game has been able to make kids get out of the house to exercise and bond total strangers together in a common tribal experience, with the help of technology. This was the new phase of social media for all gamers.

Being the go-to website for all information nowadays, we started to see new channels in YouTube set up for hardcore Pokemon Go fans. One of them stood out for me. He was very knowledgeable about the game, posted daily videos and even travelled around the whole to participate in the special events, letting all of us experience his adventures from our arm chairs. This channel is called TrainerTips and it is run by a 27-year-old guy called Nicholas Oyzon.

From Jan 2016, he anticipated the launch of Pokemon Go and created videos to talk about the game in detail every day. He was a Millenial that grew up on Pokemon game cards during his teenage years and can easily spurt out the statistics of each creature in the game effortlessly. While getting 300,000+ views per video on his YouTube channel and Ad revenue, he was also selling his own branded TrainerTips Pokemon merchandise online. These provided him with funds to pursue his passion. He also started funding campaigns (GoFundMe) to help him subsidize his overseas trips to Japan and Europe to report on the special Niantic events for his fan base.

In his own words : “The idea for Trainer Tips was born shortly after the original announcement trailer for Pokémon GO. The game represented something that we had been hoping for since childhood – an opportunity for a real-life Pokémon adventure. At the same time, it was also a promising business opportunity. Having worked in digital content creation for the last couple years, I understood the power of online video. We knew we weren’t alone in our excitement over the game and predicted that there would be a large market for the type of content we aimed to produce.”

The wonders of the social media via the internet is still evolving all the time. This guy managed to combine his childhood passion with slick online marketing to cash in on a trend as a one-man enterprise. That’s really awesome! As a frequent viewer of his videos, I can experience first-hand his adventures and thoughts. He started a business model that was able to create and satisfy a new need with a global audience as a base and then monetizing it.

While this may not last forever as fads come and go, it is a peek into things to come in the future, of possible new future careers that our kids may have. The world is your oyster and there is no glass ceiling. You develop an idea and then use a global platform to launch your content. PewDiePie was the pioneer that showed everyone the new way forward and its possibilities, which I had mentioned before on my blog. Exciting times ahead.

Arrived into Bangkok on 28 Aug noon time.

Day 1 :

Checked into SC Park hotel for next 4 nights for about S$60 per night. As recommended by a friend, walked around the place to check it out, had a light bite and then went to Health Land spa for my first massage (foot reflexology for 1 hour). Met my RI buddy Andrew and we made our way to Liab Duan night market to have drinks with Bob. Lots of BBQ seafood for supper. Really cheap local prices.

Day 2 :

Met Bob for breakfast and visited the S’pore International school. We attended the free online training seminar that he signed us up for. It was a 2 hours intro to Affiliate Marketing program by MOBE, trying to sell a 3 days course (US$1k) linked to Facebook marketing for 250 pre-selected non-physical products. Then went to view Andrew’s apartment which Bob will be helping to market for tenancy. Nice 45 sq meter one bedroom unit on the 35th floor. Cosy place with nice amenities within a 500 units project. Andrew and I took a canal ferry (amazing experience) to the new Shinsen fish market for dinner and we were pleasantly rewarded with a great meal.

Day 3 :

Visited Chatuchak in the morning. The cab I was in had an accident as a careless truck bumped him from behind. Driver was a nice guy, gave him a good tip and walked the rest of the way (1 km). Seems like Wednesday was plants and aquarium fish day. Went over to Or Tor Lok fresh produce market and found our that it was newly renovated and very clean now. Decided to try the Thai durians for a snack. Monthong was tasteless but the Kao Yao one tasted like our regular Malaysia ones with more flavour and creamer. More expensive too. Met Andrew at Khao San road to check out the famed backpackers street. Had beer and fried scorpion for a late lunch. He then took me for a walk around the Chinatown area before we headed to MBK for a Hanoko facial. Too full for dinner, so he recommended a nice Italian restaurant (Rossanno’s – 20 years history which only locals know – like Pete’s Place back home) for a light dinner with a great bottle of wine (Brunello Di Montalcino).

Day 4 :

Bob could not meet up today, so I was on my own. Went to Asoke in a cab where I swear that the driver was either drunk or plain crazy. Talking to himself and zapping around the traffic jam. Walked along the shopping district and saw a restaurant serving good steaks and wine. Took some photos to show my wine kakis as we were talking about this concept as a F&B idea. Last night at SC Park, so I had a swim at the pool and had a drink at the nearby Thai beer garden which was quite cool. Did not wait for the live band to start and moved on for a nice Thai dinner on my own (fried fish in sweet/sour broth plus a cockle salad).

Day 5 :

Checked out and headed to Marriott at Empire Place next. Room was only ready at 11 and so I went to TOPS supermarket to stock up on groceries before meeting up with the rest who flew in today (my wife/son and another family). We immediately set off to MBK and did more Hanoko facials and foot massages. Dinner was at the must-try Somboon restaurant before we headed to the Chatuchak Friday night market.

Day 6 :

Went to the Marriott gym in the morning. We booked lunch at Whale’s Belly for their fantastic buffet offer with 2 bottles of white we brought along. Then it was to Platinum for some serious shopping. Sam and I did a very nice foot massage while the rest shopped till 7+. Then we took a pair of tuk-tuks to the Rot Fai 2 night market next to the Thai Cultural center. What an eye opener! Huge playground of eateries, bars and shops by entrepreneurs. We had a sumptuous BBQ seafood dinner before splitting into 3 groups. Sam and I checked out all the bars and pubs around the area and decided to plonk ourselves at the one with the best live band. He ambitiously ordered a 3 liters beer tower (only THB 690) for the 2 of us. Could not finish and gave the last liter to the guy sitting behind us. A long and fruitful/tiring day.

Day 7 :

It was our Ayuthaya day tour today. Guide picked the 6 of us up at 8 for the hour plus ride there. We had a nice local breakfast before visiting 2 Wats/temples. It was followed by a floating market for lunch and then another 2 more Wats before heading back. Chilled in our rooms in the late afternoon before we headed to Tong Lor for a Thai dinner at Supanniga with 2 bottles of red we brought along.

Day 8 :

Started the morning with a Health Land massage. More last minute shopping and lunch at MBK before heading back at 4. Had a beer at the Marriott pool with Sam. The last night had to end with a bang – we had booked the No. 1 restaurant in BKK for 2017 : Suhring. Nice German fusion degustation (Thb 2,900 each) and wine pairing (Thb 2,600 – mainly whites). The restaurant had pretty amazing ambience and a lovely garden.

http://www.restaurantsuhring.com/

Day 9 :

Chilled in room for a late morning breakfast with stuff from 7-11 and cut fruits. Check out at 12 noon to the airport. Reached home around 7 pm.

 

Two months into my 3 months gardening leave now. Time to take stock of what I have done so far, with the goal of looking to reinvent myself in order to move to the next chapter of my life. I had given myself up to March next year to try to develop all the non-bank related leads to see if I can springboard myself into a new area of business that can sustain me for the next 5 to 10 years of my mid-career halftime move.

On Monday, I finally completed my first Skillsfuture course. It was 8 weeks of Monday evening classes for the Science and Business of Wine which I signed up with 3 good mates. In the final class, we had to do a project presentation, sit through an assessment exam and a blind tasting session. What I will cherish most will be some of the after-class whisky gatherings we had after 1045 pm with salami, cheese and oysters and the long lunch sessions 🙂   This was a great course to sharpen my appreciation of wines and learn about many things that were new to me even after drinking wines for more than 30+ years. The best part of it was that the $800+ course was free for me, after the early bird, seniors > 50 discounts and the skillsfuture fund subsidy.

Before I completed my last work day in mid-Jun, a colleague kindly referred my name to a private financial training firm. He figured that with my previous banking experience, being a trainer would be a good fit for me. I have always had an affinity to presenting to a group and imparting my knowledge to the younger members of my team. Teaching was something I liked to do. The person in charge finally connected with me this week and mentioned that she is looking to prepare the 2018 training calendar. We agreed to meet up in person in 2 weeks time to discuss further.

The Myanmar opportunity is developing into the next stage. My ex-colleague, the new CEO of the micro finance firm, had reviewed my cover letter and resume. He recommends that I should send them to the group CEO and CFO early next week and to open up the possibility of a face to face meeting with them in Yangon next month. Recently, my wife had also helped to introduce me to someone who had also recently started a business in Myanmar through his church group. We met for coffee and had a very good exchange of information about the current business climate onshore.

As part of my goal to reinvent myself, I have also signed up for more training into the next few months. On 27 Sep, I will be attending a one-day introductory seminar on Big Data Analytics ($350 after the early bird discount). It will be a good chance for me to see if I can leverage on my past marketing experience to go into this new exciting sector. I have also confirmed another course on “How to Start a Small Business” (8 evening sessions over 4 weeks from mid-Oct). This course is a steal at only $81. I had always wanted to start my own business and this will ensure that I avoid the common pitfalls.

Last week, I also had the chance to meet up with the organizer of the Non-Profit Leadership  (www.cnpl.org.sg) initiative to see how I can offer my services to certain NGOs which I may have a passion for. I also reconnected with the person whom I had been discussed about the retirement village concept since 2012. We caught up with each other, to see what each of us had been doing over the last 12 months.

On the business opportunities front, I will be heading to Bangkok next week. I will be reconnecting with a childhood friend who had moved there in 1999 and had since started a family there. We have known each other since we were 8 years old. Accompanying us will be another person from my secondary school days who currently has some business dealings there. Hopefully, we can discuss and explore some business openings. My family and another family will join me a few days later and we will do a nice pig-out cum shopping vacation there. Really looking forward to this trip!

Thanks to technology, we are entering into a new era of social interaction with the sharing economy. The possibilities are limitless and AirBnB/Uber are prime examples. In China, you can now rent an umbrella or a basketball anytime you need them, when it starts to rain or if you are at a basketball court and just decided to shoot a few hoops. We can now share almost anything, even a couch in your living room. The Millenial generation is not too hung up about owning physical assets like cars and homes now as they can enjoy a more cost effective way of sharing resources within the society.

I had to send my car for servicing and new technical issues last week. It cost a bomb and I had to reconnect with Uber again for transport as the car was in the workshop. Uber had an offer at that time that gave me $4 off for the next 7 rides. Some of my short trips were free and it was so efficient.

I also recently discovered the world of station-less bike sharing platforms. My son was using them to take a ride from the bus stop to our home. Apparently, for this month of Aug (being National day month) all Obike rides were free! For the rest of the week, I started my morning run to the Botanic Gardens and then had a walk in the park (to satisfy my Pokemon Go addiction) before taking an Obike ride to my favourite coffee shop for brunch. Just yesterday morning, I went to the East Coast park for a walk and then used Obike to cycle around the beach area. Total cost : Zero. I used to rent a bike for $8/hour and obtained another hour free, ie. $4/hour. Now it is free… The existing bike rental shops are certainly going to get crushed now, like the taxi companies after Grab and Uber entered the market.

I expect more industries to be changed dramatically by the sharing economy going forward. Maybe one can even share stationary next time!

Sent my CV and cover letter to my Myanmar contact on Wed. Let’s see if this opportunity does develop further from here. It will be an interesting new chapter to my career if it happens, believing in the micro finance cause and seeing a visible positive effect on a country, leveraging on my past experience.

Had a great dinner with a group of ex-colleagues last night. We last had one about 4 months ago and the theme was : great food and whisky. Since then, our in house chef had perfected the sous vide process and seared a fantastic tenderloin plus a rack of lamb last evening. We also had Jamon with melon, freshly shucked oysters, pate, cheese, salami and assorted cans of octopus, mussels and sardines. All these rich foods with multiple shots of fine whisky : a wonderful dinner with good friends indeed.

I had a call from an ex-colleague last week. He was coming to S’pore this week for a seminar and suggested that we meet up for a possible business opportunity. He has just become the CEO of the micro finance arm of one of the largest agriculture groups in Myanmar.

In my previous job, the company was a fully owned subsidiary of one of the largest sovereign funds in the world. Our mandate was to invest in Financial Institutions in Emerging Markets. In my 3.5 years there, we have been very bullish on Indochina and I had made numerous trips to Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.

We started new micro finance NBFIs (Non-Bank FIs) with JVs between some of the top onshore FI partners. We made it a point to staff the new companies with local people as much as possible while we provided support and expertise on a consultancy basis. I was helping to develop the treasury expertise, set up the ALCO framework and help them to seek new funding from banks. It was very rewarding to see our value add to the enrichment of the lives of the common people, as we provide credit to the persons who need them most.

The farmers, wet market vendors and provision shop owners needed small loans of a few hundred dollars up to a thousand dollars in order to grow their business. This segment normally does not have access to credit lines at all and even if they manage to get it, interest charges are exorbitant (> 50%p.a.), making their business even harder to succeed. We created a structured framework at a lower cost for them to borrow via transparent processes, either with or without pledged collateral. Seeing the country progress, as its middle class grows with our help, was a way we could give back to society. We were able to use our financial strength and reputation as a sovereign fund to breach the gap between the individuals’ demand for loans and the banks which we had access to. With our past experience in the evaluation and credit scoring of the micro finance sector in Indonesia, China and India, we were able to make a business case for each project.

Met my ex-colleague on Thursday for lunch and he expanded on his proposition. He was a month into his new CEO role and he was looking to set up his advisory committees to run the micro finance arm effectively. Having worked with him for a few years, he was comfortable about introducing me as an advisor for his ALCO team. I mentioned to him that I was keen to explore further as I was also looking to do something different now. As a next step, he will introduce me to his boss and this may result in a trip to Yangon next month. Let’s see how all this will develop and play out.

Retirement as a global vacationer?

As a follow up to my Chiang Mai trip last week, I have been reading a lot about a retirement lifestyle which I have discovered recently as part of my research preparation. Retiring overseas has been a trend for many years that has been very popular for people in G10 countries, moving to a lesser developed countries.

Even with a pension plan, most active retirees cannot maintain a comfortable lifestyle as costs have soared in their home country. With the same amount or much less, they can enjoy a better quality of life moving overseas. They can either sell their assets now or rent out their current homes to generate more passive income to sustain their nomadic lifestyles, living in a few cities around the world for months or years at a time. If for health or medical reasons eventually, they can then return home permanently and then dip into their savings. Given that it is very common to see active 80-year-old people nowadays, it does mean that your global overseas retirement vacation can last for many years!!!

I came across many online materials that provided comprehensive information on each and every livable city that suits an active retirement lifestyle. Most allow for a relatively comfortable means of survival for under $2,000 a month, either as a couple or individually. This will work out to just $24k per year. Hence a half million of funds set aside can last you for 20 years! Of cost, if there are emergencies, you will have to tap into your other retirement savings. But if you have passive income (rentals or pension like CPF Life), then technically your retirement funds need not be touched at all.

I found a publication online (International Living Australia – see link below) that was helpful and choke full of shared experiences from people who have been there and done it. Some have started as early as in their forties and others are still going at it into their seventies. It is a trend that is going to happen more actively for us going forward. The amazing thing is that most of these recommended cities are just in our backyard, around the Asia regions. Countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia regularly pops up.

https://internationalliving.com/au/

As long as you are healthy and mobile, one can travel the world and not break the bank account. Think about it. For 9 months of the year, one can move to 3 cities and chill out for 3 months in each of them, to really explore the place at our leisure. Bangkok, Hu Hin, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Koh Samui, HCMC, Hanoi, Danang, Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, Penang – just a few cities within Asia which retirees are flocking to. All the cities do have an active expat retiree network of associations which one can tap into to seek for information.

This alternative lifestyle is workable and already been tried and tested by many. The attraction is obvious. Of course, if you are a home body, then this may not work for you. But what if you just do this for a few months a year?

 

As I had previously mentioned in my blog, I have had a keen interest in the setting up of active lifestyle retirement communities in Asia. I see it as a growing market as my generation ages. We are different from our parents and tend to have a more western concept of leading an active lifestyle after retirement with like-minded people as we are more aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy way of life and hence living longer. This is also partially due to medical advances.

This retirement concept is not new for countries like the USA, Holland, Australia, and Japan. My country is only just beginning to realize the growing demand for this service while we have absolutely zero supply at the moment. I tried to get a business going last year after talking about it for a few years but the deal fell through as I could not get my 2 principal partners to agree on the concept and to work together. We did our numbers and estimated that the conservative demand was for at least 6,000 of such units here. The project would be like a condominium of around 300 units on a lease basis and the IRR can be in the mid-teens.

Chiang Mai is one of the cities that had come up on my radar recently. It has attracted a lot of older Aussies and Europeans for its low cost of living and nice environment. I decided to pay the place a visit this week to check things out, given that I had time on my hands. There were a number of retirement resorts there and I arranged for a visit to 2 of them.

The last time I was there, I was on a backpacking trip with my uni mates in the late eighties. That was almost 30 years ago, where we were young and gung-ho with a tight budget. How things have changed there as I had discovered.

Booked my flights on the budget airlines and the hotel was also relatively cheap ay $50 per night, located near the night bazaar area. I flew in this week on Tuesday and stayed until Friday morning. On day 2, I hired a car with a driver for half a day and made my way to the 2 retirement resorts which I had made appointments with via emails.

The first visit was to Care Resort. The head nurse Tanya greeted me and proceeded to give me a tour of the grounds. It was a former hotel resort which the current British owner turned into a retirement concept. Currently, they are full and there are 22 long stay retirees mainly from America and only 2 were from Asia. Technically, one was a Thai-Amercian lady who had spent many years in America. The place looks a bit small and oldish. Most of the people seem to have a bit of dementia. The resort is looking to double its capacity by expanding and opening a new wing by Sep.    http://www.careresortchiangmai.com/

The next place I visited was Vivo Bene and Khun Aoy was there to show me around. The place was pretty impressive and modern looking, resembling a Swiss/Japanese setup. They have 6 large villas that each have 12 individual rooms with common living and kitchen areas and are able to accommodate about 90 people. I was told that it is owned by Swiss operators with Thai partnership. Given that it was opened in 2014 at a cost of THB 250 million, I was surprised that they currently only have 8 retirees after opening for almost 3 years. 1 patient has quite severe dementia while I see 2 other elderly men exercising in the gardens. I suspect that this could be the pricing, as they are relatively high, targeting Swiss nationals who have more pension funds. I guess the original aim to attract mainly Swiss demand did not really work out.  http://www.vivobene.co.th/

Overall, the retirement villages here seems to cater more to the older folks (at least 70 years old)  who require some form of assistance. For those that seek active retirement lifestyles, they can still do it on their own as the city offers cheap private accommodations ($350 to 1k per month) and there is already a big network of expat associations where one can reach out to.

Spent the rest of my time doing a Mae Ping river cruise and a rickshaw city tour. Massages were really cheap, only $8 for an hour of foot reflexology. So I did a 1 to 3 hours of massage every day. The night bazaar street comes alive at night but it was raining most nights except for my last night. Went to watch live bands and have an ice cold beer with nice Thai seafood meals most of the time.

 

I start to see this new ICO (Initial Coin Offering) bubble building up and it reminded me of the IPO craze that we participated during our university days way back in 1990.

At that time, IPOs were like a 100% sure thing to make money as the stock would fly on the first day of trading. It was a new thing in Singapore and every father, mother, son was jumping on the bandwagon to get in.

We were undergraduates doing our uni life and finance was an area that we would eventually major in, as it became a career for most of us later. I decided that this was a good business opportunity to practice what we have just learned from the professors. I managed to talk to 5 other mates to get into this “collective investment scheme”.

It was then already very difficult to get an IPO allocation if you applied for a small number of shares, almost like a lottery ticket. As there was little to no regulation on IPO financing then, banks were tripping over themselves to offer 99% financing to anyone. Being the gung-ho guys that we were, we all decided to bid for 1 million shares (1,000 lots of 1,000 shares each)…

As relatively poor students then, we did not even have a cheque book amongst us, so we all had to deal in cold hard cash only. We agreed on the following day to each bring about $1,000+ cash to campus to pool up our resources to make up the 1% in order to get a cashier’s order, apply for the 99% bank financing and then submit the IPO application. As I was the only one that had a stock broker at that time, we will then submit our bid to my remisier.

The night before, I suddenly had cold feet and wondered what if our consortium had some disagreements later? Luckily, we were had done Law 101 in our first year as one of our modules. I quickly drafted a legal one pager and made sure all of us signed it in the presence of everyone the following day when we gathered the cash.

One of the guys had a girlfriend that worked in the branch of a local bank, so we went over to pass her the cash to obtain the cashier’s order and apply for the 99% financing before rushing over to the stockbroker to hand him our IPO documents.

The first sign that something was not right was when we met Peter, my remisier. He commented that it was a busy day and that we were his number 21 client who had submitted the documents to apply for 1 million shares on the Kim Eng IPO. “TWENTY-ONE !!!”  @$*&&^%$^##@

Guess what? Kim Eng became one of the most oversubscribed IPO in S’pore and maybe the world. It was 705 times oversubscribed!!!!!  The Jan 1990 IPO to raise S$32.5 million attracted an eye popping record S$22.9 billion in subscription monies. It went on to make a stunning debut as its share price tripled on its first trading day.

And what did we get for our 1 million shares application? ONE FREAKING LOT of a thousand shares…. We decided to sell off the miserable lot to take profit but one of the guys in the group decided to buy it over (it was still on physical scripts then) as he thought that there was potential for further upside. I remembered that the price we sold to him was S$1.61 . The poor guy never did see the price go much higher in the next 20 years…

The cost of the 99% financing for 4 days worked out to be about S$800+ for an almost S$800k loan. After deducting all the costs (not including the transport cost, sweat and tears etc), the net profit for each of us was about 50 bucks each… enough for a nice meal to celebrate our “success”…

What an unforgettable experience… The same group of friends still get together periodically and we sometimes talk about this crazy episode after all these years.