Forbes Asia - October 2018

ERIKA PINEROS FOR FORBES

ecutive, Ching Chiat Kwong , to commit to

building two more Phnom Penh projects.

Next is he Peak, a $ 580 million complex

of three 55-story towers that includes a 300 -

room Shangri-La hotel expected to be in-

ished in 2020, and then he Palms, a $ 100

million luxury riverside community. Homes

will start at $3 5 0,000, and this in a country

where per capita gross national income is

just above $ 1 ,000 a year.

At the Oxley Wo rldBridge showroom

in central Phnom Penh, Sear seems to con-

cede that he had to hire foreign design and

construction irms because local compa-

nies aren’t yet able to build 4 5- and 55-story

towers. But he lauds the designs as his own

ideas, declaring that the silver and gold sky-

scrapers of he Bridge and he Peak could

blend into Singapore’s skyline. For his part,

Ching says he was surprised by the young,

bustling population of Phnom Penh. He

quickly signed on ater meeting Sear, and

now calls Cambodia one of his best-per-

forming overseas investments.

he glitzy real estate developments

grab lots of attention, but the foundation of

Wo rldBridge is the logistics company, which

Sear started as a delivery service in the 1 990s

and then expanded into import/export and

outsourcing services. It boasts 3,7 50 em-

ployees, including some in Vietnam, Laos,

hailand and Myanmar, and lists more than

200 multinational customers.

Sear says he’s a billionaire, and that well

may be, but Forbes Asia cannot verify this.

He bases that claim largely on the value of

the 7. 5 million square meters of land around

the country that he says he’s purchased over

more than two decades, but he declines to

provide property records. He also says he

owns 1 00% of privately held Wo rldBridge,

along with a 5 0% stake in Oxley Wo rld-

bridge and 40% of Kerry Wo rldbridge Lo-

gistics, a joint venture with Hong Kong’s

Kerry Logistics Network that provides lo-

gistics, freight forwarding and supply-chain

support. He says his companies and joint

ventures generated $ 1 .3 billion in reve-

nue last year, with the property business ac-

counting for 60% of that. But he declines to

provide net-proit igures and other inan-

cial results.

Corruption is seen as endemic in Cam-

bodia—the country ranks near the bottom

of the 180 countries on Transparency Inter-

national’s Corruption Perception Index—

and it sours foreign investors’ stomachs even

Rithy Sear at The Peak, his $580 million complex in Phnom Penh that will include a Shangri-La hotel.

OCTOBER 2018 FORBES ASIA | 19