Oxley

Oxley: CEO Ching Chiat Kwong got rich betting that shoebox apartments would be the next big thing. Now, his Oxley Holdings is expanding overseas, and could see a quadrupling of its earnings in the current financial year. He is featured in The Edge this week. As background, Ching was born in 1965 to Shanghai migrants and signed on with the Singapore Police Force after serving national service. Subsequently he enrolled to study sociology in the National University of Singapore, graduated with an honours degree and rejoined the police force. Two years later, he gave up his police uniform and tried a myriad of other jobs. His prospects started to brighten when he began building showflats for property developers, including the Fragrance Group. Learning about the business, he raised "a few hundred thousand to a million dollars" by taking a mortgage on his home, and bought a small plot of land. The project became the 48-unit Tyrwhitt 139 in Little India.