2020-03-01_Forbes_Asia

50

FORBES ASIA MARCH 2020

THE PROFILE

Andre Koo Sr.

can thank his

expertise in leasing

for making him a

member of Taiwan’s

50 richest list, with

an estimated net

worth of $2.3 billion.

* DEFINED AS A % OF TOTAL PRIVATE CAPITAL INVESTMENT

SOURCE: WHITE CLARKE GLOBAL LEASING REPORT 2019 (DATA AS OF 2019)

In 1997 he took the helm of Chailease Holdings, a Taipei-

based listed company founded by his late father Jeffery Koo

Sr. in 1977. Long an also-ran in his family’s stable of finan-

cial firms, Koo turned Chailease into one of the fastest grow-

ing leasing companies in Asia, whose stock has risen seven-

fold in the last nine years into a $5.5 billion market cap firm.

His secret to growth for the $1.7 billion (annual sales)

company is identifying businesses too small or too special-

ized for banks to lend to. “We’re very good at finding niche

markets,” says Koo, 52, who owns a controlling stake in

Chailease and is one of its executive directors. “We are very

confident we can manage the risk profiles for those mar-

kets very well.”

Last year, Chailease earned a slot on the inaugural Best

Over A Billion list of the region’s 200 top-performing com-

panies with $1 billion or more in sales. “Chailease has a

unique and strong track record,” says DBS Research ana-

lyst Ken Shih in Hong Kong. Chailease’s 2019 results for the

first three quarters, released late November, were NT$12

billion ($386 million) on NT$43 billion revenues.

In the 1980s, Chailease leased construction equipment

to companies leading Taiwan’s industrialization, then fol-

lowed as they expanded across Asia, leasing them every-

thing from cars and planes to kitchen equipment and ships.

Over the decades, it built a collection of what’s now called

Big Data on every industry it has financed. “Its key strength

is 30 years of data that helps it improve internal credit risk

models,” says Shih.

Koo is now ready to use those insights to further expand

Chailease’s already-substantial mainland Chinese business,

despite the coronavirus outbreak and a growing wave of

→

ROOM

TO GROW

DESPITE CHINA BEING THE

WORLD’S SECOND-LARGEST

COUNTRY BY LEASING

VOLUME, ITS PENETRATION

RATE IS RELATIVELY LOW,

IMPLYING ENORMOUS

POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH.

U.S. China U.K. Germany Japan

World’s top five leasing

markets ranked by volume

Volume (US$ bil)

Penetration rate*

22%

7%

33%

428 254 92 73 66

16% 5%