18 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2018
C
ambodia can be a hard sell, but
Rithy Sear relishes the chal-
lenge. When he courts poten-
tial business partners from
overseas, he listens to their
worries about the small size of the market,
the lourishing trade in smuggled goods, the
corruption. And once they’re done, he begins
working tirelessly to reshape their opinions.
Sear’s negotiating advantages are prep-
aration and conidence. He usually doesn’t
meet investors in his oice. hat’s a clut-
tered, temporary suite in the Phnom Penh
headquarters of his Wo rldbridge Interna-
tional, his logistics, property and invest-
ment company. Instead, he chooses the ex-
clusive business lounge on the 1 2th loor of
the Soitel Hotel, where the loor-to-ceiling
windows lead your eyes to he Bridge, his
gleaming 4 5-story hotel, retail and condo-
minium complex that will be completed by
the end of the year. hat’s where he’ll present
his argument.
Global security company Brink’s got
this treatment. It already was a customer of
Sear’s logistics company, transporting Tif-
fany & Co. jewelry to Cambodia. But Sear
igured that Brink’s could increase its local
revenue eightfold if it worked with Wo rld-
Bridge on ofering more services in the
country. When it hesitated, the hard-charg-
ing entrepreneur says he began a full-court
press, lying to any Southeast Asian coun-
try that a Brink’s executive happened to be
visiting until it signed a joint-venture agree-
ment in July.
Ever since Cambodia reopened to the
outside world in the 1 990s, Sear, 48, has
built his businesses by seeing what the rest
of the region was doing and then making
connections with multinational players. He
fashions himself as a gateway to the coun-
try—a “clean and clear” local partner easing
foreign investors into a largely wide-open
emerging market while coaxing the govern-
ment into removing barriers to econom-
ic development. Partners in the region “trust
me; my credibility is very important,” he ex-
plains. “I never do a business trade in which
anyone loses.”
Singapore, in particular, has been an in-
spiration for Sear, and Singapore property-
development group Oxley Holdings his big-
gest partner. he Oxley Wo rldbridge joint
venture is building he Bridge and has al-
ready sold all of its condos. hat persuad-
ed Oxley’s executive chairman and chief ex-
FORBES ASIA
RITHY SEAR
After a four-year odyssey as a refugee, Rithy Sear returned to
Cambodia and started an entrepreneurial journey that’s made
him one of the country’s top tycoons and biggest boosters.
BY DANIELLE KEETON-OLSEN
Delivering
the Goods
