Datuk Steven Sim, Group CEO of Secret Recipe Cakes & Café Sdn Bhd, opened the first Secret Recipe café in 1997 in SS2 Petaling Jaya with his three nephews who were qualified bakers. He noticed the lack of casual lifestyle dining cafes in the local scene at that time and left his job as a Marketing Director in a multinational company to venture into the F&B business. It was a runaway franchise success locally. It expanded first into Singapore and then into ASEAN and China. In 2007 Secret Recipe Cakes & Cafe garnered the International Franchisor of The Year award by Franchising and Licensing Association Singapore. The company has also been...

Old Town White Coffee (OldTown) was co-founded by two friends, Goh Ching Mun (from the family business of Nam Heong Coffee Shop in Ipoh, Perak) and Tan Say Yap, who had been in the coffee-manufacturing business for about 20 years. Goh and Tan recruited Lee Siew Yee who was working with a garment manufacturing and trading company before he joined OldTown. Lee is the man behind the rebranding of the OldTown business and expanding it internationally while Goh and Tan worked behind the scenes to formulate the blend of white coffee that made the OldTown brand famous.

The OldTown Group is principally engaged in three major business...

Chatime is a Taiwanese bubble tea chain founded by Henry Wang of La Kaffa International. The Master Licensor of Chatime Malaysia is a company called Will Group Sdn Bhd which secured the franchise for Chatime in March 2017. Will Group’s Managing Director Aliza Ali and its Executive Director, Widayu Latiff (a former Chatime sub-franchisee for 5 years) are bent on expanding Chatime again in Malaysia. 

Interested business partners who want to start a Chatime outlets can file an inquiry at www.chatime,com.my or contact them at chatime@willgroup.com.my or 

Will Group 
Level 18, Block A, Menara Mustapha Kamal, PJ Trade Centre, No. 8 Jalan...

Kuo Choo Song (88),  Managing Director of Hup Seng Industries Berhad (Hup Seng), co-founded the 60year old Hup Seng group in 1958. Then he was only in his 20s. Presently his brothers are on the Board of Main Board Bursa Malaysia listed Hup Seng. Dato’ Keh (Kerk) Chu Koh (77) is Chairman while Kerk Chiew Siong (67), is Vice Chairman. Kuo Choo Song’s nephews, Kerk Kar Han (52) is Executive Director while Teo Lee Teck (60)is on the Board and concurrently Chairman of In-Comix Food Industries Sdn Bhd. Kuo’s niece, Kerk Chian Tung (49), is Executive Director of the company.  All have been with the family business for decades.  

Hup Seng’s...

When former MSN Money editor, Bryan Joiner lost his position in June 2020 to an algorithm, he said that the ascent of algorithms in the world of journalism will be the natural order of things to come. Microsoft recently laid off many of its editors and journalists at Microsoft News and MSN organisations. It is not alone in this push towards using artificial intelligence robots to curate news and financial reports for its audience. Bloomberg News uses Cyborg to assist its team of financial journalists in the race to be ahead of the pack but even John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of Bloomberg admits that the hedge funds are in the lead...

The late Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng’s two sons, Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor (54) and Lee Yeow Seng (42), have been elevated to higher positions since June 2019 in the respective listed companies which they helmed from the time of the demerger of the IOI Group of companies in 2013. Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor is Group Managing Director and Chief Executive of IOI Corporation Berhad (18 June 2019) while his brother Lee Yeow Seng is Vice Chairman of IOI Properties Group Berhad (15 April 2020). Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng, founder of the IOI Group, separated the oil palm plantation business from the IOI Group’s property development business and listed IOI Properties...

Kedah born food entrepreneur Tony Lim, 41, started his first Boat Noodle restaurant in 2014 at Empire Damansara, Klang Valley. Within two years he had 13 Boat Noodle restaurants, halal certified, and attracted the attention of Japan’s biggest noodle operator, Toridoll Holdings which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Kobe-based Toridoll, led by its dynamic founder, Takaya Awata, (President of the Toridoll group), was on the lookout for acquisitions to expand outside Japan where it already had more than 1000 eateries under various brands, the chief of which was the Marugame Seimen chain of Sanuki udon restaurants (more than 850 outlets...