His hospitality empire is worth over $200 million

Ho Kwon Ping is the co-founder and govt chairman of Banyan Group.

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Rising up, Ho Kwon Ping did not assume he’d turn out to be a businessman, not to mention a resort tycoon.

“I had not at all times wished to be an entrepreneur,” he advised CNBC Make It. “It is simply that the few occasions the place I began working for different individuals, it did not actually work … I am fairly individualistic. I turned an entrepreneur extra by the shortage of different avenues.”

Immediately, the 72-year-old is the founder and govt chairman of Banyan Group, a hospitality firm with a portfolio of 12 international manufacturers, greater than 80 lodges and resorts, together with spas, galleries and residences unfold throughout greater than 20 nations.

A view of the sundown from the Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

The corporate, which is listed on the Singapore Inventory Change, introduced in about $328 million Singapore {dollars} (about $242 million) in income in 2023. Banyan Group has a market capitalization of SG$300 million, in line with LSEG information.

The youth

Ho shared one thing about himself that some could discover shocking: He was jailed in his youth.

He mentioned his formative years was largely outlined by a powerful zeal for social activism.

Whereas working towards his undergraduate diploma at Stanford College within the early Seventies, he was an outspoken scholar activist in opposition to the Vietnam Battle (additionally known as the “American Battle” in Vietnam).

He joined different protests on campus — notably, one in opposition to American inventor and physicist William Shockley, which finally obtained him suspended from the establishment.

“I used to be thrown out due to my attending with the Black College students Union, a protest they’d in opposition to a man known as William Shockley, who received the Nobel Prize for creating semiconductors, however who additionally had a wierd view about eugenics. He wrote a number of books saying that Blacks ought to be sterilized,” mentioned Ho.

Consequently, Ho was tried in a campus judicial panel and located responsible of suppressing educational freedom, thus resulting in his suspension from the college. Subsequently, he determined to depart Stanford and returned to Singapore, the place he accomplished his nationwide service and restarted his college research.

“I needed to begin from zero and it was actually boring, so I began writing as a contract journalist [for] a now-defunct journal known as Far Jap Financial Overview,” he mentioned. “I began writing about Singapore politics, which the federal government did not like. So, I obtained jailed below the Inside Safety Act for being pro-Communist.”

That was in 1977, and he was put into solitary confinement throughout his two-month jail sentence — a time he describes as being “scary, lonely, miserable and reflective.”

Ho Kwon Ping and his spouse, Claire Chiang, in 1992.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

After his launch, Ho rejoined the journal as a journalist and moved to Hong Kong along with his spouse, Claire Chiang. The newlyweds moved to a small fishing village on Lamma Island there known as Yung Shue Wan, which interprets to “Banyan Tree Bay.”

“I wasn’t paid very nicely, so I could not afford to reside on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon … so we had no alternative however to reside on Lamma Island,” Ho mentioned. “Though we weren’t wealthy … we had three very idyllic years there.”

Ho was born in Hong Kong and spent most of his childhood and adolescence rising up in Thailand earlier than shifting to Singapore. His father, Ho Rih Hwa, was a businessman who co-founded the Thai Wah Public Firm and headed the Wah Chang Group, conglomerates with operations throughout Asia.

“Though my mother and father have been fairly nicely off, I’ve at all times been a bit rebellious and wished to be unbiased and so forth,” he mentioned.

An unintended businessman

In 1981, Ho’s father had a stroke. Because the eldest son, Ho assumed the accountability of taking on the household enterprise.

“That enterprise was an actual microcosm of abroad Chinese language companies, which means a jack of all trades however grasp of none,” mentioned Ho. “We had about 10 to 12 completely different companies from development to contract manufacturing of televisions … even Adidas sneakers, and so forth.”

After a number of main failures and classes in working the household enterprise, Ho had an epiphany — somewhat than working a “hodgepodge of companies,” he wished to concentrate on constructing his personal model.

“I made a decision then that contract manufacturing just isn’t a long-term answer. You must personal the client, and you may solely accomplish that by proudly owning a model or proudly owning a expertise, and I am not a technologist, so I made a decision we needed to personal a model,” he mentioned.

When the ‘lightbulb went off’

The celebs aligned when in the future in 1984, Ho stumbled upon an enormous piece of coastal land in Bang Tao Bay in Phuket, Thailand. He determined to buy the stretch of over 550 acres, which turned out to be an deserted tin mine, in line with an official firm assertion.

After years of restoration, Ho labored alongside his spouse and his brother — who’s an architect — to design and develop a number of lodges and resorts on the property. Laguna Phuket, Asia’s first vacation spot built-in resort, was opened in 1987, in line with the assertion.

“We designed the primary resort, and we managed to get a Thai firm to handle it. A second resort — Sheraton managed it, and third and fourth and so forth,” mentioned Ho. “After which the final piece of land had no seaside [so] no person wished to handle it.”

“That was when the lightbulb went off, and I mentioned: Properly, since no person needs to handle it … why do not we begin our personal model?”

An aerial view of Banyan Tree in Phuket, Thailand.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

To make up for the shortage of a seaside, Ho determined to construct personal villas with a pool for every.

“This was 30 years in the past, so the notion of an ‘all-pool villa’ resort did not exist … we have additionally pioneered the ‘tropical spa,'” he mentioned.

In 1994, the group’s flagship luxurious resort “Banyan Tree Phuket” opened its doorways, together with the primary Banyan Tree Spa — a reputation impressed by the blissful years Ho spent along with his spouse in Hong Kong’s Banyan Tree Bay.

“Innovation would not drop from the sky … it was a response to a necessity,” he mentioned.

In 2006, Banyan Tree Holdings Restricted debuted on the Singapore Inventory Change, and in 2024, Banyan Group was launched as an umbrella model for the multi-branded portfolio, in line with an organization assertion.

“Folks have requested me whether or not I offered out or not, and I’d say: ‘No, I’ve grown up. The sorts of issues I used to be doing, you possibly can’t preserve doing perpetually. You will go to jail completely, and likewise you are not efficient,'” mentioned Ho. “However what we wished to do by way of social change, I feel we’re truly doing by way of Banyan Tree.”