Former Teacher Chairs This Malaysian Property Developer

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Watch the video with Andrew Stotz or read a summary of the World Class Benchmarking on S P Setia Berhad.

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Background

S P Setia Berhard (SPSB) engages in property development, infrastructure and wood-based manufacturing and trading. It provides services mainly in Malaysia and has extended its reach to Vietnam, Singapore, Australia and England. The company has about 2,000 employees and more than 30 successful property development projects.

Business Description

S P Setia’s core business, property development carries out residential projects such as Setia Sky Residences and commercial projects such as SetiaWalk. The company’s portfolio includes a total of 26 projects in all regions of Malaysia. In addition, SPSB develops projects in England (1 project), Australia (3 projects), Vietnam (2 projects) and Singapore (2 projects).

The company is working on the purchase of I&P Group, which would bring SPSB’s total land bank to more than 10,000 acres. Purchase price is expected to be around US$800m. SPSB intends to use a mix of equity, internally generated funds and debt for the acquisition.

S P Setia Berhad

Besides its property development business, SPSB has a fully owned subsidiary, Setia Precast, engaging in infrastructure projects. It has built more than 35,000 units of prefabricated residential units.

The company also engages in wood-based manufacturing and trading, catering to the construction industry. Under the Setia Wood brand, they manufacture and distribute roofs, doors, windows, moldings and other carpentry work.

Leadership

Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Wan Mohd Zahid has been the company’s Chairman since 18 June 2009. He’s also the CEO of the company. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Malaya, he continued his education in the US. He received his Master’s degree from Stanford University, California and his PhD from University of California, Berkeley. He also completed an Advanced Management Programme from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Zahid started his career as a teacher and later worked in various positions for the Ministry of Education. Other current directorships he holds include Amanah Saham Nasional (PERBANK MK) and Sime Darby (SIME MK).

S P Setia Berhad

Dato’ Khor Chap Jen joined the S P Setia group in 1995 as a General Manager for the Property division. He became the Deputy President and COO in 2014 to then advance further and becoming the CEO of the company on 1 January 2015. Dato’ Khor earned his Bachelor of Engineering from the same university as Dr. Zahid, University of Malaya.

World Class Benchmarking

Profitable Growth for S P Setia saw a great improvement to #2 in 2015 but has fallen back to #4 in the past 12 months.

Profitability has fallen to #4 as well from #2 in 2015. The Growth rank has dropped from being World Class in 2015 to #5 in the past 12 months.

S P Setia Berhad

Asset utilization improved one step to #4 in the past 12 months while Profit margin fell one step to #4.

Sales growth has been in the red since 2016, so Margin change has been what drives the average Growth rank.

Article by Dr. Andrew Stotz, Become A Better Investor

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