Forbes Asia — October 2017

ADAM DEAN FOR FORBES

W

hen a husband-and-wife team took over KBZ

Bank in remote northern Myanmar in 1996 ,

it had all the trappings of a mom-and-pop

operation. She was a local schoolteacher. He

also had been a teacher, then he switched to

tutoring before going into trading and mining. Today two of their

daughters help run things, and it’s still entirely owned by the family.

But looks can be deceiving. Aung Ko Win and wife Nan Than

Htwe have built KBZ into by far the biggest bank and one of the

largest companies in the country. KBZ Group boasts two airlines,

Air KBZ and Myanmar Airways International, and holds stakes in

the agriculture, real estate and tourism industries. The two sent the

daughters overseas for management degrees and this year brought

in a professional chief executive. They may raise money in a stock

market listing to invest in new businesses at home and abroad.

Myanmar aspires to be Asia’s next tiger economy, and to get

there it’s counting on companies such as KBZ to upgrade its skills

and become internationally competitive. “We don’t want to be the

best bank in Myanmar,” says second daughter Marlene Nang Kham

Noung. “We want to be among the best in the world.”

KBZ claims 4 0% of the country’s bank deposits, and its deposits

have exploded since the country opened up, growing at an average

annual rate of 43 % since 2012. Last year it became the first Myan-

mar bank to open offices in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore,

neighboring markets that are not only important for doing cross-

border business but also for collecting remittances from millions of

overseas workers. In March, KBZ announced a landmark deal with

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. to expedite fund transfers in the

U.S. A deal like that would have been unimaginable a few years ago,

when strict U.S. sanctions against Myanmar were still in effect.

A majority-owned unit also controls roughly a third of the

country’s insurance market, and the annual growth in the premiums

it collects tops 4 0%. It’s the local front-runner in other financial

services, too, such as credit cards. Across the empire, analysts praise

KBZ’s planning, management and smart investments. “They are

definitely one of the most important companies in Myanmar,” says

a consultant in Yangon. “They are ahead of the curve on everything:

human resources, recruiting, transparency and business practices.

Others talk, but KBZ is really working to be the best.”

The bank employs almost 2 0,000 people and notes that it’s the

country’s biggest taxpayer: It paid nearly $25 million last year.

Even so, the bank represents less than a fourth of KBZ’s 8 0,

workers. Privately held, the company doesn’t disclose figures for

revenue and profits.

16 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2017

FORBES ASIA

ALL IN THE FAMILY

‘Banking

Is Exciting’

A family of entrepreneurs has built KBZ into a finance

powerhouse in Myanmar. Mom and Dad are in charge,

but keep an eye on their twentysomething daughters.

BY RON GLUCKMAN

A GENERATION EMERGES