His hospitality empire is worth more than $200 million - ORSOLTECH

Ho Kwon Ping is the co-founder and CEO of Banyan Group.

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Growing up, Ho Kwon Ping never thought he would become a businessman, let alone a hotel tycoon.

“I didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur,” he said. CNBC Make it. “The thing is the few times I started working for other people, it didn't really work out… I'm a very individualistic person. I became an entrepreneur because there were no other ways.”

Today, the 72-year-old is the founder and CEO of Banyan Groupa hospitality company with a portfolio of 12 global brands and more than 80 hotels and resorts, along with spas, exhibitions and residences spread in more than 20 countries.

Sunset view from Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

The company, listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, generated revenues of 328 million Singapore dollars (about 242 million dollars) in 2017. 2023. Banyan Group has a market capitalization of S$300 million, according to LSEG data.

Formative years

He shared something about himself that some may find surprising: He was imprisoned in his youth.

He said that his early life was largely characterized by a strong enthusiasm for social activism.

While working on his bachelor's degree at Stanford University in the early 1970s, he was an outspoken student activist against the Vietnam War (also called the “American War” in Vietnam).

He joined other protests on campus, particularly those against the American inventor and physicist William ShockleyWhich ultimately led to his suspension from the institution.

“I was expelled for attending with the Black Student Union, a protest they organized against a man named William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing semiconductors, but who also had a strange view on eugenics,” he said. Black people should be sterilized.”

As a result, he was tried before a campus judicial committee and found guilty of suppressing academic freedom, leading to his conviction comment From the university. He subsequently decided to leave Stanford University and return to Singapore, where he completed his national service and resumed his university studies.

“I had to start from scratch and it was really boring, so I started writing as a freelance journalist for a now-defunct magazine called the Far Eastern Economic Review,” he said. “I started writing about politics in Singapore, which the government didn't like. So, I was imprisoned under the Internal Security Act for being a communist supporter.”

It was 1977, and he was placed in solitary confinement during his two-month prison sentence – a period he described as “scary, lonely, depressing and brooding”.

Ho Kwon Ping and his wife Claire Chiang in 1992.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

After his release, Ho returned to the magazine as a journalist and moved to Hong Kong with his wife, Claire Chiang. The newlyweds moved to a small fishing village on Lamma Island there called Yong Shu Wan, which translates to “Banyan Tree Bay.”

“I wasn't paid well, so I couldn't live on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon… so we had no choice but to live on Lamma Island,” Ho said. “Even though we were not rich…we had a very idyllic three years there.”

Ho was born in Hong Kong and spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Thailand before moving to Singapore. mother, To Rih HuaHe was an entrepreneur who co-founded the Thai Wah Public Company and chaired the Wah Chang Group, a conglomerate with operations throughout Asia.

“Even though my parents were very well off, I was always a bit rebellious and wanted to be independent and so on,” he said.

An accidental businessman

In 1981, Hu's father suffered a stroke. As the eldest son, Hu took over the responsibility of taking over the family business.

“This business was a real microcosm of Chinese companies abroad, meaning a range of all trades but mastering none of them,” Hu said. “We had about 10 to 12 different companies ranging from construction to contract manufacturing of TVs… to Adidas shoes and so on.”

After several major failures and lessons in running the family business, Ho had an epiphany — instead of running a “hodgepodge of companies,” he wanted to focus on building his own brand.

“I decided then that contract manufacturing was not a long-term solution. You have to own the customer, and you can only do that by owning a brand or owning technology, and I'm not a technology person, so I decided we would have to own a brand,” he said.

When the “light bulb” went out

The stars aligned when, one day in 1984, Ho stumbled upon a vast plot of coastal land in Bang Tao Bay in Phuket, Thailand. He decided to purchase an area of more than 550 acres, which turned out to be an abandoned tin mine, according to an official company statement.

After years of restoration, he worked alongside his wife and brother – an architect – to design and develop several hotels and resorts on the property. Laguna Phuket, the first integrated resort in Asia, was opened in 1987, according to the statement.

“We designed the first hotel and were able to get a Thai company to manage it. A second hotel ran it – the Sheraton, the third, the fourth and so on,” Ho said. “And then the last piece of land had no beach (so) no one wanted to manage it.”

“That's when the light bulb went off, and I said, 'Well, since no one wants to manage it… why don't we start our own brand?'

An aerial view of Banyan Tree in Phuket, Thailand.

Courtesy of Banyan Group.

To compensate for the lack of a beach, he decided to build private villas with a swimming pool each.

“That was 30 years ago, so the idea of a (pool villa) hotel did not exist… We also pioneered the creation of a (tropical spa),” he said.

In 1994, the group's flagship luxury resort, Banyan Tree Phuket, opened its doors, including the first Banyan Tree Spa – a name inspired by the happy years he spent with his wife at Banyan Tree Bay in Hong Kong.

He said, “Innovation does not fall from the sky… rather, it was a response to a need.”

In 2006, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited debuted on the Singapore Stock Exchange, and in 2024, Banyan Group was launched as the umbrella brand for the multi-brand portfolio, according to a company statement.

“People would ask me whether I sold out or not, and I would say, 'No, I've grown up.' The things I've been doing, you can't keep doing them forever. You'll go to prison forever,” he said. “And you're also ineffective.” “But what we wanted to do in terms of social change, I think we are already doing through Banyan Tree.”