This article first appeared in Personal Wealth, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on August 22 - 28, 2016.

 

A purpose-driven life

To someone on the outside, Datuk Chevy Beh seems to have led a charmed life. There is no privilege his father, a self-made man who started BP Healthcare Group, did not give him.

Beh went to a fully residential college and was on his way to becoming a “professional bum” with other rich kids, who like him were “rich spoilt brats who couldn’t care less”, when he suddenly woke up.

“I wondered what I was doing with my life. How was it that I could have been born with no purpose,” he says. 

This epiphany prompted a self-examination and he started to work purposefully towards a goal. “I realised that so many of these kids were not doing much with their lives and it was such a waste. That is why they say wealth never goes beyond the third generation. It is the interest alignment — there is no fire. They got everything so easy. Why would they need to work?” says Beh.

He found this to be a widespread phenomenon among the extremely wealthy in other parts of the world as well. “I remember this 18-year-old who received an allowance of US$100,000 a month. When he turned 21, it was upped to US$200,000. That is close to RM1 million and he could do whatever he wanted with it. And guess what? He would use it up every month, spending money on all sorts of nonsense.”

Beh’s father tested him the same way. “When I went to high school in the UK, he gave me a lump sum that was enough to cover a year or two. He told me I could do whatever I wanted with it but also remember that if I abused it, I would limit my own credibility and he would never give me this kind of money again,” says Beh.

“A lot of my friends were from billionaire families, but their parents really limited their allowances to see how they would survive. My father was from another school of thought. He thought that if you want to see how crazy a guy can be, give him money and power.”

Beh acquitted himself admirably. He did not run out of money and he did not make the headlines for doing all the wrong things. He worked hard academically and played polo. In fact, he was the captain of the England under-21 team. He even managed to go the University of Virginia in the US as a “polo scholar”. 

He completed a four-year double major (in economics and Asian studies) in three years and went to work at one of the oldest investment banks on Wall Street — Dominick & Dominick. This was just before the crash and Wall Street was still floating on a tide of irrational exuberance.

“At the time, a lot of Chinese companies were going public. We did plenty of reverse mergers. Later, I joined another investment bank called Maxim, which did 99% of all the special purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs) in the US,” he says.

Beh was fascinated by what investment bankers did and how they did it. “They know what deals are out there and who has the money to invest in them. They were the connectors. But when they got too greedy, when they started selling snake oil, when they didn’t even know what they were selling, that was when things went wrong.”

He was there towards the end of the Wolf of Wall Street days. “Yeah, I would say the movie was true. I have seen when they close deals, they party hard, buy bottles, buy models. It is all real, it is not made up.” 

He was also there when it all went pear-shaped. “I had roommates who worked at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and they told me that a few of the partners literally had heart attacks when they were filing Chapter 11 [bankruptcy]. They had lost their entire net worth because everything was tied to the stocks.”

Although there was a bloodbath on Wall Street, Beh remained relatively unaffected. “I still had my job at the end of it, but the deal flow had dried up. After a few months of doing nothing much, I became restless. I still got paid, but what was the point? So I said, ‘I have seen enough and it is time to go home,’” he recalls.

Did he miss the perks when he came home? No, he says. It was nice while it lasted, but not necessary. “I take commercial flights and I can take budget airlines; no big deal — whatever gets you from point A to B. When someone else is paying versus you paying out of your own pocket, there is a difference,” says Beh.

Naturally, not everyone took the transition lightly. “It is the difference between viewing the perks as a tasting menu, where you taste and enjoy them, or as a drug, where you need this and without it, you are dead,” he says.

Why didn’t he lose his head? It was because he had seen it all, even at that young age, having rubbed shoulders with the glitterati of the world because of polo. “I met the Sultan of Brunei when I was 14. And I have played against Prince William and Prince Harry. 

“Polo, as Winston Churchill says, is like a passport to diplomacy. You get to meet heads of state, top lawyers and bankers and other celebrities.”

Sports did give Beh a good platform but it was what he did with it that mattered. “I think there are a lot of fortunate kids out there who have the platform. The problem with them is they have everything and no drive to do anything.”

When he returned, the lifestyle adjustment was no problem. The job adjustment was another thing altogether. “Wall Street was a great experience because we were at the centre of things. When I joined my family business, I found it unsexy. It was boring, archaic, even ancient. But somewhere down the road, I realised that in this industry, you could touch lives in a positive manner,” he says.

“People would come and thank me because they had early detection and so were able to treat their cancer. I felt that by doing this, I was building the karma money; future points.”

But it was not enough. Although as the eldest son, his position in his father’s company was assured, he did not want to be perceived as someone who made it because of who his father was. Beh worked hard to build the company when he took over as managing director, increasing the number of branches from 50 to more than 200 in six years and growing the workforce from a few hundred to a few thousand. But he was not satisfied. 

“One day, a friend of mine, Joel Neoh, approached me. He is the partner and ex-CEO of Groupon Asia-Pacific. We knew each other because we were Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year in the emerging category for different years,” he says.

“He told me what I was doing with my family business was very interesting, but why didn’t I want to grow faster? I said, ‘How much faster can I grow?’ Anyone can tell you that BP Healthcare has grown so fast in a short period of time.” 

But Neoh had a plan. “He asked me why I didn’t use technology and invited me to come on board BookDoc as a co-founder. He would help on the technology side because his expertise was to scale and would leave the industry know-how to me.”

BookDoc allows users to search and make appointments with healthcare professionals, such as doctors, specialists, dentists and physiotherapists.

In just seven months, he managed to sign up some major players. “I got Socso to be my partner for the next five years. I got Agoda, a US$66 billion company, which is the largest aggregator of hotels online to come on board. This was its first ever tie-up with a start-up.” 

Beh works very hard. “I used to travel for work and for polo, but never like this. I have never travelled so much in my life. I am up at 5am to take the earliest flight to Singapore, arrive there at 8.30am, have a meeting there and take the red-eye home so I am back by midnight. And the next day, I am on a flight to Hong Kong. I have been travelling like that every week,” he says.

He is 31 now and he admits that he does get tired. “But when I think of what I have managed to achieve, it is a thrill that money cannot buy. No start-up has grown at this rate; it is unprecedented.”

Although his previous networks have opened doors, it is how he uses them that matters. “I keep knocking on doors. My greatest strength is persistence. I keep going until I get it done.”

He has already signed up an impressive list of partners, but he is nowhere near done. “I want to look for other partners. The largest accommodation aggregator is Airbnb. I got connected with the founder and boom! I think we are going to work with them as well.”

The list of investors reads like a who’s who. “When I first started, there was Joel. Then, I got the Ministry of Health’s director-general Datuk Dr Maimunah Hamid, former chairman of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Datuk Sharil Tarmizi, former Hong Leong Bank CEO Datuk Yvonne Cheah, and the head of corporate finance at Sime Darby Healthcare. The last investor we got was from the Brunei royal family.”

How did he manage to do this? “It is just my track record working. Some of them, I didn’t even ask. They came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I heard you are doing this. You are my friend. How come you never asked me?’”

Investment approach

Beh’s approach to investment reflects his age and consequently, high-risk appetite. “At this stage, I am a young guy and I can take a lot of risks. You can see this from the fact that most of my time, effort and money are being spent on a start-up right now. If I make it, it will be a big home run and if I don’t, well, it is what it is,” he shrugs with an attempt at nonchalance.

As for stocks, he is both an investor and a punter. “During the financial crisis, I bought the stocks of all the financial firms. Today, I am like a 100% up on nearly all of the stocks. I bought GE, ING, Bear Stearns — which went belly up — and Citibank. Overall, I made money. Some are just trades. I play on the thing called a mean reversion,” he says.

Mean reversion refers to buying when bad news causes a stock to tank. Beh believes that in most cases, the stock will move back up again. And for the most part, he has been proved right. 

For instance, Beh says he bought a stock called Sirus at 70 US cents and it is now trading at US$5. “With mean reversion, you invest in strategy, not play on the fundamentals.”

He has made some traditional investments such as property. “I own properties in Malaysia and abroad. I am quite fortunate. I bought a nice apartment in New York back when the exchange rate was RM3 to US$1. So, I already made on that, plus I get rental income. 

“I always believe that in places like New York, property prices will be a steady state or going up, but never coming down because of the scarcity of properties and the regulations about tearing down buildings to build new ones.”

His philosophy in life is simple. “I think everyone has a purpose whether they are rich or poor. People are created for a reason and you have to determine how far you want to go, how much you want to contribute and how much you want to earn.” 

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