Talking to Ming yesterday, he told me that my “Achilles Heel” was that I am too nice and too often just give in to people when I shouldn’t. So I started thinking about nice people who had bad things happen to them for being too nice and one story from my childhood came to mind.
Today I want to tell you the story Mr Chee (not his real name).
Mr Chee
I first knew Mr Chee since he became friends of my parents. He was about 50 years old when I first met him. With limited education growing up, he didn’t speak much English. He only spoke Chinese and BM but he was a self-made and very wealthy man.
He came from nothing and made almost all his money investing in the stock market back in the early 90s. My mother used to say that he had the “midas touch”. That every stock he invested in went up and he made more and more money almost like the sky was the limit. Every now and then you would see him in the stock broker’s office, sitting there in a seated area along with a number of aunties as they watched the screens for the latest stock prices. He was popular there and everyone went to him for tips.
From the money he made in the stock market, he reinvested much of it back into the stock market and some of it into buying some property.
His Personal Life
He also spent some of the money on himself too. He had a keen interest in old chinese style antiques so he would buy lots and lots of antique furniture for his homes. Being a nice kind man, he often donated to charity too.
At age 50 he wasn’t married but he had a girlfriend that was literally half his age. While most people would speculate to see if she was really with him for the money (given their age difference), some who knew him believed that she was really in love with him. After all, he was a really really nice man that you wanted to be around.
His stock market plays were only getting bigger and he was making even more money. Not just because of the larger pool of money he now had but because bankers had started knocking on his door offering to lend money to him to invest. The sell is simple. If you have RM10 million in assets, the bank could take that as collateral and lend you another RM5 million or so of that. So instead of just having RM10 million to invest, you had RM15 million. You would make so much more. Of course if you lose, you would lose much more too but hey he had the midas touch. Plus he had lots of other assets.
Then came the 1997 financial crisis.
Stocks he owned took a crash. They didn’t just drop 10-20%. They dropped 50-70%. If he had RM 10 million invested in the stock market, that very quickly dwindled to just RM3 million. On top of that he had bank loans to service and to pay off.
My father used to tell me that bankers only want to lend money to you when you don’t need it. And want to take it back when you need it most.
That’s exactly what happened to Mr Chee.
When the stock market crashed the bankers started calling him concerned about their loans to him. After all, most of the money he borrowed had gone into the stock market and the stocks he owned now and worth much less than the money he owed the bank. Not only that, the collateral he had given the bank was also worth much less than the outstanding loan with the bank.
He was in financial trouble but there isn’t much the bank could do to him anyway apart from force selling his collateral and maybe suing him for bankruptcy.
But Mr Chee was a nice guy
One day over lunch his banker was telling him how stressed out he was because he had gotten the loan for Mr Chee and now it doesn’t look like Mr Chee would be able to pay it back. In fact with the economy in turmoil, he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t pay back loans. Many other businessmen too and normally some would strike a deal with banks for discounts on their loans. But Mr Chee was a nice guy. He did none of that.
Mr Chee being the nice guy he was empathized with the banker. He told him two things. First of all, he was sure the market would recover and that things would go back to normal again. Secondly, to make the banker feel better and because he was so sure the market would recover soon, he would charge his properties to the bank. Providing the bank additional collateral for his loan.
Now this is normal practice with banks. If the value of your collateral drops they ask you to top up or they will sell your collateral to cut the loss and you still remain a guarantor for the loan. In the case of Mr Chee though he voluntarily did it. Not just properties but he brought back whatever assets he held overseas that the local banks normally wouldn’t know to touch and put it into the loan.
The benefit he got was that perhaps the banks won’t force him to sell his shares at that current value of it which was 30% of what he bought it for.
The banker was happy and all was well… until the market got worse and took longer to recover than expected. Soon the bank made off with all his assets and Mr Chee became a bankrupt.
Now some bankrupt men have money squirreled away somewhere under their wives’ names or overseas so they can still survive. Mr Chee had none of that. He had given it all away to the banks.
Mr Chee had lost it all in his fifties. He lost his money, his home, all his properties and even the wide antique collection he had massed over the years. Oh… and he also lost his 25 year old girlfriend.
Mr Chee Today
Mr Chee today is probably over 70 years old. The last I heard about him is that he lives alone in a small rented room. He works as a lorry driver and he takes the bus to work every day. He’s getting older by the day and with no money and no one to care for him…. his future is more uncertain now than it ever was before.
The story of Mr Chee reminds me that sometimes… nice guys really do finish last.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space