This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 4, 2023 - December 10, 2023

Datuk Soam Heng Choon

I first met Datuk Soam Heng Choon when I was just starting out as a writer. My colleague and I were doing a story related to Petaling Jaya, and ran into a roadblock. Someone suggested asking Soam, who was the CEO of IJM Land Bhd at the time, for help owing to his extensive knowledge of the industry and area.

When I called Soam, the last thing I expected was for him to invite us to join him for breakfast at PJ Hilton hotel the next morning. I also did not expect him to spend nearly two hours with us, sharing his experiences on not only the subject matter but the industry as a whole. As we said our goodbyes, he said, “Feel free to call me any time if you need help.”

He kept his word as over the years, no matter how busy he was, he always made time for us.

“When someone calls you, it means they need your help, and in return, I hope they will help other people. I learnt my basic principles from my parents and grandparents, in particular my grandmother who always told me to do things with my heart, and that is a value I carry with me in my life. It means do it with passion and, with your mind, deliver what you promise,” shares Soam during an exclusive interview at Wisma Rehda in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

A highly respected figure in the Malaysian real estate industry with a long and illustrious career that spans over 40 years, Soam is the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to the Real Estate Industry Award of The Edge Malaysia Property Excellence Awards 2023.

An engineer by training, Soam is the immediate past president of the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) Malaysia and sits on the boards of Sime Darby Property Bhd, Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat Bhd and Construction Labour Exchange Centre Bhd. He was the CEO and managing director of IJM Land from 2004 to 2015, and IJM Corp Bhd from 2015 to 2019. Active in Rehda for more than 20 years in various capacity, he was its president from 2018 to 2022. Soam has since retired.

It is safe to say there are many reasons why Soam is respected in the industry, and they include his knowledge and his humility. The latter was evident when I met up with him for this interview, as the first thing he said was, “There are a lot of people who have contributed so much to the industry. I have done so little in comparison. I don’t know why The Edge is giving me this award.”

Much of his humility and drive come from his childhood experiences. “Growing up, my family stayed in a rented room; later a rented house that was more like a squatter house. I remember hearing my parents talk about buying a house often, but the opportunity never came along. It was a source of frustration for them.

“Because of this, I understand the importance of having your own home, and later, being able to build so many houses to fulfil the dreams of others has been so satisfying for me. It is fulfilling work and what drives me all these years,” says Soam.

At one point, he was living in an area where there was a lot of construction work going on and was fascinated by the big machines like the excavator. “They were like toys I couldn’t take home. I was amazed by how things could be created from nothing and sometimes, overnight. I remember seeing a bridge collapse and it was rebuilt in a few days,” he shares.

It was no surprise Soam would later choose to study civil engineering. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in the UK. Upon returning, he worked for the Ministry of Works, where he would stay for 10 years.

“When I first started, I was in the design office and later, I supervised work on site. Based on my professional training, I felt that I could contribute more to the real estate industry because it has a much larger scope of work, from end to end, while construction is only part of the work. I also like to meet people, and in property development, there’s a marketing aspect where I have to meet and engage with people. I find this so much more interesting than being in the design office or construction site,” says Soam.

In 1989, Soam joined Road Builder (M) Holdings Bhd, which later merged with IJM Corp. Around 1993, he was posted to handle construction work in the Seremban 2 township, a project that would become of great importance to him. The 2,300-acre development was conceptualised in 1993/94 and the first house was sold in August 1996.

“I am very attached to Seremban 2. I am a Seremban boy and to be able to do something for my hometown is something I cherish and am proud of. I was involved in the construction of Seremban 2 in the early years. Luckily my predecessor had foresight — the tagline [for Seremban 2] was ‘city and country in one’, which embraced some of the ESG principles that are important today, particularly on the environmental aspect. So, when I took over, I built from there,” says Soam.

Seremban 2 would also be his biggest challenge as he took over the project during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

“It was very challenging at the time because some of the buyers couldn’t follow through with the purchase. We had challenges in sales and marketing, and cash flow was a problem. We had to pay the contractor and we had to deliver the houses on time for those who did not default, or we would be penalised. In a nutshell, we were short of cash and we had to sell new houses quickly. I realised we could not keep doing the same thing; it had to be different,” recalls Soam.

As Seremban 2 is a township, it allowed Soam and his team to change the products quickly. In this case, the developer gave bare finishes and simple designs to maintain the affordability.

Soam says, “Sell what the people want. I was lucky to have had a good team who worked together quickly to change the direction and products, and worked to conserve cash without affecting the progress and completion. We also faced challenges with the infrastructure, which needed to be completed before the first handover. I’m happy to say our handover was not delayed and was done in 1998.”

Under his leadership, IJM Land was transformed into one of the largest and most successful property developers in the country. As a CEO and a property developer, Soam has weathered two global financial crises and a pandemic.

“The fellas in Rehda used to laugh and say I was like a wartime president during the pandemic. I have been in this industry for so long, I have seen the ups and downs, and I have never given up. We must not be afraid to see the difficulties ahead and find ways to overcome them,” says Soam, who was president of Rehda when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

He remembers the meeting he had at Wisma Rehda the day before the start of the Movement Control Order on March 18, 2020.

“We knew something bad was going to happen. All the work sites had to stop working the next day and we had to do something. I called up the other seniors and asked them what they thought would happen once the construction sites were shut down and the lorries stopped moving. We quickly put our heads together and put out some pointers. We then appealed to the authorities and asked them to look into these issues.

“Never be afraid to face challenges head on. There’s a Chinese saying that goes, ‘Do not worry, when the ship reaches the bridge, the bow will straighten.’ But it doesn’t work this way in our industry. It’s up to us to do something,” shares Soam.

Affordable housing is a topic close to Soam’s heart and he notes that after so many years, the industry is still talking about it and even the parameters of the industry have changed.

“Policymakers, house buyers and property developers each have their side of the story and their points. I think all of them need to sit down and find a middle ground. There are a lot of moving parts — we should try to fix one or two of them first. For example, finding ways to lower the cost of business. What about the issue of labour? And we need more first movers into new technology. People tend to be afraid to invest in new technology as it costs money and they worry about failure.

“The good thing is we are seeing some changes in recent years with more companies using IBS (industrial building systems) and BIM (building information modelling). Hopefully, they will mature in the next few years and can solve some of the moving parts,” says Soam.

While he has retired, he is still one of Rehda’s national council members and helps out when requested. In fact, he spends much of his time reading about affordable housing and trying to find ways to fix some of the issues.

“It’s still early days. [Rehda Institute] is doing research on affordable housing. Affordability is a very wide topic and no one has really done a proper study here. Our Department of Statistic Malaysia did a household income study recently, which means we now have data to correlate to our study,” says Soam. The Rehda Insitute is the training and research division of Rehda Malaysia. 

In early 2022, Soam suffered a stroke. He admits it was a big adjustment for him, being such an active person, but as he says, “Luckily, my brain is still working.”

“I keep my reading routine and I try to socialise a bit more these days. It would be worse if I become a recluse. I still attend all the meetings online, but once in a long while, I try to come to the meetings in person. I just had a meeting here [in Wisma Rehda] before you came. They were all surprised and happy to see me. They said I need to go out more,” he chuckles.

“I have been very fortunate to have a lot of friends come and visit me. They gave me a lot of encouragement so I can recover faster. Now, I want to do more physiotherapy and recover even more. My goal is to be able to walk as soon as possible,” says a determined Soam.

Looking back on his legacy, Soam hopes to be remembered for his efforts in helping the industry through difficult times.

“One thing I will tell the new generation of property developers is to study the market and create products that the market wants and deliver with quality. I feel developers have a bad reputation for various reasons: not delivering on time, abandoned housing, poor quality and so on. My wife always asks me, ‘Why do developers have such a bad reputation?’ So, it is important to do a good job and regain the [positive] image of developers. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. It is better to under-promise and over-deliver, or at least deliver what you promise,” advises Soam.

If there is one thing he wished he had done more in his career, it is to experiment more. “Dare to experiment and dare to fail. Though at the time, I wasn’t sure if my boss could accept failure,” he laughs. “I hope more organisations and more people in the industry will experiment and accept failure, so they can try and create new things.”

Ultimately, Soam’s biggest fulfilment is seeing happy customers. “Years later, they come back and tell you that they are very happy with the house they bought from you. That’s where I find my fulfilment — a satisfied customer,” he says with a smile.

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