Early retirement: Calling it quits early

Retirement is not only a privilege for the elderly anymore.

Retirees are no longer only old people in their sixties with grey hair and frail bodies. Members of a younger generation have become part of this group with their own reasons and purposes that have deconstructed the meaning of retirement itself.

The thought of being able to say goodbye to the daily grind may have made retirement appealing for the young generation. But retirement is more than just about freedom for corporate slaves.

It is also about the chance for young people to pursue a passion that may have been forgotten due to workloads.

Therefore, it is no surprise to find that a number of young individuals are planning to retire early, leaving their established careers along with their comfortable lives so that they can concentrate in their pursuit of passion.

Maudini Virtriana is one of those people. At 30, she has become a senior brand manager for a big multinational company in Jakarta. Having a prestigious position at such a young age, the woman definitely has a bright career ahead of her. Yet Virtri, as her friends call her, plans to leave her job at 35 to follow her passion.

"My passion is not in corporate work. I work only for money so that I can make something out of it," she said.

Virtri hopes that her savings could eventually help her realise her dreams to run a coffee shop and open a school in Yogyakarta.

Passion was the same reason that drove Muadzin Furqanul Jihad to leave his career at a French company a year ago. At 41, the former senior engineer resigned from the company so that he could follow his passion in entrepreneurship.

"I always wanted to retire early ever since I started working. My aspiration is to have my own business," Muadzin explains.

Beyond passion, psychologist Adriana S. Ginanjar sees that there is some kind of "revenge" in these young retirees when they made their decisions, as if they wanted to redeem those long working hours with much more productive activities for their own life satisfaction.

Whatever their motives, according to Adriana, the most important thing for early retirement is to make it as sustainable and enjoyable as possible.

To do that, good preparation and strong plans are needed, because being a retiree also means less income.

Having a pension fund is another way to ensure the lifestyle of young retirees. People nowadays are given a wide array of options to save money for pensions. These early retirees can choose from conventional bank savings to sophisticated investment tools, like mutual funds, among other things.

An NGO worker, Risnauli Simalango, 32, and her husband are aware of the importance of pension savings to support their decision for early retirement.

Therefore, instead of targeting a certain age, the couple aims for Rp 5 billion (US$522,055) in savings before they can retire.

"I imagine that we can still live with that money, even though we won't have a monthly salary anymore," she said.

It is quite a huge amount of money but the couple is optimistic that they can do it in the next 10 years.

Not only that, the mother of one said they had also prepared insurance to ensure the education of their only son in the future.

In relation to preparing money for retirement, financial planner Eko Endarto has shared his formula on how big this fund should be. He said that before deciding to retire, a person must have a reserve capital three times bigger than their monthly spending so they can still enjoy their life.

"But for retirees who want to set up a business, the amount should be six times bigger than their monthly expenses, excluding business capital," he said.

Even though there are no statistics mentioning the exact number of young retirees in Indonesia, Eko believes that most of young people in Indonesia retire because they want to run their own business.

The financial expert referred to a recent survey carried out by himself, mentioning that eight out of 10 people are ready to leave their current jobs and become entrepreneurs.

Adriana adds that this mushrooming entrepreneurial spirit is encouraged by the conducive business environment in Indonesia.

"The current business world is so vast. It is possible to do any kind business now. If you don't have enough start-up capital, you can just use the Internet," she said.

The existence of these so-called young entrepreneurial retirees have no doubt changed the public's perception about retiring. People used to think that retirees only meant those who were no longer working and now spent their days doing nothing.

But, in the hands of these young retirees, retirement days may be as busy as daily office work, only this time they will work to build their own dreams.

That's why even though it may sound cool, early retirement may not be as easy as people think and can be more stressful than office work due to the pressures on individuals for success.

Muadzin said that he experienced that when he tried to start a business after retiring. It was not a smooth start, as he had to close down his business and suffered hundred millions of rupiah in losses.

The same thing happened to Iwan Agustian, 42, Muadzin's business partner. The guy's story was even more extreme than Muadzin, as he decided to retire at 33 after resigning from an underwear company.

"I tried to sell everything from clothes to meatballs, and they all went bankrupt," he said.

Things changes after he met Muadzin and they established a coffee franchise that took them to success. Starting in 2009, the franchise now has more than 420 outlets in 80 cities in Indonesia.

Through all the ups and downs in business world, one thing remains for Iwan, and that is his family.

He said that his wife had disapproved of his decision to retire at first but she finally backed him up in the end.

Adriana said that the support of family and friends is important for retirees so their positive spirit can be bolstered throughout retirement.

Apart from the support of family and friends, passion seems to be another success key to early retirement.

Eko suggested that young retirees to do things passionately - either a business or a hobby - as they will have higher success rate.

"At least, it will make you enjoy everything you do," Muadzin said of his experience.

Planning for early retirement? Finding your passion seems to be a good start.

Singapore fast becoming Asia's clubbing hotspot

SINGAPORE: Singapore is fast becoming a clubbing hotspot of Asia, and this has led to a rising demand for new nightlife trends.

Veterans said the industry has taken on a new lease of life, with a relaxation of guidelines and the onset of technology.

Buzzing business hub by day, pulsating nightlife by night.

Asia's clubbing hotspot sees partygoers revel the night away at nightclubs islandwide.

Clubbing pioneers like CEO of St James Holdings, Dennis Foo, said the nightlife scene has come a long way from its humble roots.

"I remember in the 80s, it was a handful at most of bar operators outside the hotels and there were very few people like us. And the real action was in the hotel lobby lounges."

Co-Director of Filter and Mink, Phillip Poon, echoes this sentiment.

"I remember not that long ago when clubs used to close at 3 o'clock in the morning and everyone was scrabbling for after-hour parties at peoples' houses."

The pace picked up in the past decade as regulations were relaxed, to encourage a livelier and more vibrant scene.

Phillip Poon said: "Licenses have been extended, the government has spent a lot more, relaxed on certain rules and regulations so it has become a lot more dynamic."

Nightclubs are also shifting towards a more entertainment-oriented concept.

Besides dancing, patrons also expect clubs to offer more variety, such as interactive contests and over-the-top themed nights.

Zouk DJ, Adrian Wee, knows all about living up to the expectations. "People get excited about dancers, pyrotechnics, headliner DJs who are not just DJ-ing, they're entertaining. They get excited when the DJs takes off his shirt or climbs the console or dance really silly stuff."

Adrian added that patrons are spoilt for choice, and it's no wonder they are demanding more.

"They are like 'oh can I have this music and I want to listen to it now,' so that's what most DJs go through these days because they always get this kind of request and most of the time, I get a bit annoyed by the frequency of the request and how demanding these requests are. If we can accommodate, we'll do it. If we can't, then we have to fake or pretend to faint."

But veterans caution the industry's dynamism can be a double-edged sword.

For one, trends keep changing, like the infamous bar-top dancing, which Dennis Foo said was a fad.

"At that time, it was forbidden, so (it was) not allowed and everybody wanted to bar top. And today it is allowed and no one wants to go onto the bar and dance anymore because the forbidden fruit syndrome is missing."

Club owners said social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have also become critical marketing tools in today's nightlife industry.

Setting the gold standard

Why buy nondescript gold bars when you can buy intricate gold jewellery of the same value instead?

This, says Peter Lim, 52, managing director of Soo Kee Jewellers Group, is part of the rationale behind SK Jewellery's latest 999 Pure Gold Jewellery Collection.

Having invested $20 million into the 999 line so far, its first bridal collection hopes to bring tradition back in style by working the stalwart precious metal into modern designs for Chinese brides today.

Much in the same way, Mr Lim invokes the past in an interview with BT when speaking about his journey as an entrepreneur.

Few would have known that he began by running a sundry store, then a photocopying business and a photo-finishing franchise, before finally entering the jewellery industry in 1991.

Disparate as they appear, these were all stages in his journey as an entrepreneur from the 1960s till today.

He recalls when he used to manage a humble family business in Joo Chiat after his father, who originally opened the shop, passed away.

Life was tough, he says in Mandarin.

"We only had one-and-a-half days off - the first day of Chinese New Year and half of the second."

Thankfully for Mr Lim, he was soon visited by what he describes as a personal "industrial revolution".

He embraced the use of machinery and ran his own photocopying business in the 1980s before intellectual property concerns started to worry him.

Subsequently, he transformed the business once again into a more profitable photo-finishing chain as a franchisee of Japanese giants Fujifilm.

By 1991, he found himself restricted again, this time by the regulations implemented by Fujifilm on its franchisees and resolved to start anew.

Opening a jewellery shop came as a natural choice for Mr Lim, who was greatly inspired by his late father.

"My father always wanted to open a goldsmith shop, he used to call them the 'King of Retail Shops'," he said.

"We named Soo Kee after him, as a tribute."

Furthermore, it is a belief shared by both father and son that unlike clothes, which run out of style, gold will never go out of date.

The first ever Soo Kee jewellery store was opened in Bedok Central, Mr Lim's old haunt and the location of his most successful shops in the past.

He remembers the opening of the inaugural store fondly, recalling how actor Li Nanxing turned up to lend his support on the big day.

Mr Lim credits his time running the chain of photo-finishing stores under Fujifilm for honing his business acumen.

From there, he learned how to manage multiple outlets as well as marketing and promotion strategies that would help Soo Kee greatly later on.

Till today, Soo Kee still bears the legacy of Mr Lim's earlier business ventures.

The management strategies behind running numerous chain stores is an obvious one, while Soo Kee's trademark staff uniform is another lesson he learned from Fujifilm and implemented.

As a businessman, research and development is high on Mr Lim's list of priorities.

He takes pride in the fact that Soo Kee has numerous designs that are created by craftsmen in-house, having learnt the precise techniques from their counterparts in the West.

IE Singapore's Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme has been particularly helpful in advancing Soo Kee's design plans, says Mr Lim, by assisting in the company's design creation in development.

More than 1,000 designs have been created so far. In fact, the 999 bridal collection features various works created by Soo Kee designers themselves.

Maximising productivity is also a key goal for Soo Kee. "The main challenges we have faced are the increase in rentals," says Mr Lim. As such, he tackles this problem by working to raise his workers' productivity, so as to increase their contribution per square foot and offset the higher costs.

Interestingly, he actually accomplishes this by increasing the salaries of his workers. Although this might seem as a contradictory method at first, he is adamant that this is the best way to go.

"To increase business, we must increase salaries. This way, we can retain competitiveness, retain talent, and raise productivity," says Mr Lim. Besides this, he encourages his employees to work overtime if they are willing and hires older workers who he says are more "mature" and "reliable".

Expansion ranks highly in Mr Lim's plans for Soo Kee. He hopes to do so not only geographically - in the form of overseas branches in countries like Malaysia and China - but also in the form of reaching out to a broader consumer base through its more-affordable "masstige" SK Jewellery line.

"We believe that jewellery is not just for tai tais," says Mr Lim candidly.

"With the SK line, jewellery can become affordable and for people to wear everyday." This concept, he believes, is exemplified though the SK line, whereby "masstige" is a portmanteau between mass market and prestige.

As for the future, Mr Lim hopes that the new range of 999 pure gold jewellery will breathe new life into people's perception of the metal.

He aims for the line to eventually branch out from the bridal market into the "full product spectra" with a new collection to be released within the next half year.

"Parents pass on their gold to their children as a blessing in traditional culture," says Mr Lim. "We hope to give gold a double purpose and a new life."

Gains from fast-track business

SINGAPORE - It all started at the age of 21 for him from a tentage beside his kampung home in Hougang.

Mr Danny Teo transformed an air-conditioning business based in that simple shelter into an appliance and electronics retail chain, now known as Gain City Best Electric.

Mr Teo, the founder and its executive chairman, said in Mandarin: "The company has to move forward, or it will move backwards. I have to always improve, expand the product line and provide more services."

In an interview with my paper last Monday at his Ang Mo Kio head office, he added: "Doing business is like being in a Formula One race. You have to race fast and avoid accidents."

Mr Teo, who turns 53 this year, said he went into the air-conditioning trade as he believed it had "a lot of potential", due to Singapore's warm climate and the fact that he was "afraid of the heat".

At age 16, he became an apprentice at a now-defunct local air-conditioning firm and picked up skills in maintenance and repair.

In 1981, he opened his own door-to-door air-conditioning maintenance business.

"I'm an independent person, with my own way of doing things. It's easier for me to express my abilities that way."

The man also explained why he did not follow in his parents' footsteps of supplying seafood to restaurants and coffee shops.

"In the past, I didn't think it was challenging enough. But, when I grew older, I realised the seafood business was actually not bad."

After he began his business, he took in an apprentice.

He eventually hired more people, roped in his four younger brothers and trained them.

The name of his business, Gain City, was derived from his desire to contribute to Singapore and help it prosper.

Singapore is known as the Lion City, while one English translation for "prosper" in Chinese is "gain".

In due course, he branched out into the refrigeration business and other home appliances and, about three to four years ago, consumer electronics such as notebooks and cameras.

Gain City has nine retail outlets. Its latest store in Changi City Point opened in November last year.

The firm is planning a new centralised warehousing facility in Sungei Kadut with a new retail store.

The 10-storey building is expected to open in the first quarter of 2014.

Besides retail business, Gain City is also in the wholesale business.

The company has been involved in installing air-conditioners for the F1 night race in Singapore since 2008.

One project Mr Teo got much satisfaction from was the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings in 2006, as the event came with many challenges, such as severe time constraints.

Gain City has pulled through tough times as well.

In fact, the business founder took the opportunity during slow periods, such as the 2009 recession, to hire and train workers, instead of retrenching staff and cutting pay.

This helped prepare the company to do more business subsequently.

"You have to make preparations regularly," he said of downturns.

"If you regularly do things properly, you'll be fine."

The firm has about 700 employees and, if Mr Teo has his way, the number will grow to 1,000.

While family members, including three of his brothers, are actively involved in the business, Mr Teo strives to keep work separate from family matters.

"In this way, when brothers work together, there won't be problems," he explained.

And he deliberately avoids harping on a "family culture" in Gain City.

He said: "Just get the work done properly. A family culture should naturally develop on its own.

"It's important to be sincere, honest, keep your word and be professional."

The world is her oyster

Despite zero experience in oyster farming, this plucky woman ploughed $500,000 into a derelict oyster farm and successfully persuaded restaurants here to buy local molluscs.

She had no prior experience in aquaculture.
But that didn't stop her from venturing into unchartered waters and investing half a million dollars to rebuild a derelict oyster farm which had gone bust.

That was three years ago.

Today, Madam Fanny Su, 50, juggles her full-time job as a manager for an international organisation and being a part-time farmer on her oyster farm, Hai Loong Mariculture, located off Pulau Ubin, near Chek Jawa.

Her venture into oyster cultivation began when she was looking to do more with her love for the outdoors.

She initially considered fish farming.

In 2009, she started scouting for a fish farm to buy and discovered there was an oyster farm which had gone out of business about a year ago.

Doing her sums, Madam Su found that oyster farming could be more cost effective, she says.

So she paid the farm's previous owners $50,000. Says Madam Su with a laugh: "It came with a small motorboat and a cat."

The oyster farm was in very bad shape, almost half sinking when she got it.

It took four months to rebuild and she engaged contractors and sought help from the local fishing community.

The structure of the farm, which used to span 2,000 sq m, now covers an area of 4,000 sq m.

The total cost of the repair and renovation works? A cool $500,000.

It was a risk from the beginning as oysters take at least a year to mature and there was no guarantee of a market for locally-cultivated ones.

Having no prior experience, Madam Su ramped up her game by attending overseas trade shows and oyster farming courses in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia to learn the ropes of the trade.

The farm now cultivates Pacific oysters from spats (baby oysters) delivered from Australia and Chile every four months.

Today, after three years of persistence and hard work, the farm has begun to yield results.

Now the farm employs five workers and supplies 3,000 oysters a week to about a dozen restaurant-chain regulars here and to private consumers.

The farm has 500,000 Pacific oysters growing in baskets at any one time, and they are working toward producing 20,000 of the plump shellfish a month.

Madam Su reckons it will take at least another five years to recover her investment.

And it was no easy feat persuading local restaurants to buy her oysters at first.

Recalls Madam Su: "I went cold-calling door-to-door, carrying a small insulated ice-box containing fresh oysters! I started at Clarke Quay and Boat Quay.

"Most believed that imported oysters are the best. I had to persuade them otherwise. I invited the restaurant managers and chefs to sample our oysters and let them taste the quality for themselves."

They were eventually won over by the plump, fleshy and fresh produce.

Before delivery, the oysters have to be scraped clean, sorted into three different size groups and undergo extensive depuration, a process of cleaning, purging and sterilisation for two days to kill off bacteria and viruses that may be present.

The oysters are then placed in a cooler water tank, ready for shipment.

Once a week, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore checks the surrounding water, the depuration system and collects oysters for testing.

Every weekend, Madam Su and her brother, Mr Frank Su, 58, who is retired from the army, pitch in.

She'll be busy with the paperwork and scraping duties, while her brother does maintenance work and monitors the farm.

For her, it really is a labour of love.