The new year is here! 2023 was an exceptional year. I have had several people asking me what I had been up to for the past few years. I was extremely busy with my business which I started and it eventually took a huge, and very positive, grip over almost all my time.
Just about six years ago, I chanced upon the corporate secretarial business. This consists of the work of incorporating companies and managing the corporate compliance matters of companies. I had the fortunate opportunity to take over a corporate secretarial practice. At that time, the business only focused on corporate filings and incorporation work. Over the past few years, I expanded the business to include services like bookkeeping, GST and tax filing, application for corporate grants and even application for the various work passes through the setting up of an associated Ministry of Manpower employment agency.
This is extremely different from real estate work. However, I always wanted to own businesses. I wanted to run companies. I have always been investing in stocks and this was essentially owning a part of a business as a shareholder. Albeit a small part as a relatively insignificant shareholder. I always knew that I owned the shares of the company in my name and being a real estate agent is not me owning shares of a real estate company. I have always helped others grow their businesses so I felt that since I was, at that time, nearing 40 years of age, it was time for me to grow my own business. The business should be in the form of companies where I could always seek funding and execute expansion and mergers through the flexibilities that the share structure of a typical private company limited by shares would offer to me.
The usual growing pains of running a company did not elude me. Hiring was always an issue especially when your company is in essence a start-up. Man management is extremely difficult and remains a challenge to me today. However, I believe I have gotten better over time. I will perhaps share the lessons which I learned over the past few years on man management in a separate blog article. The company grew from having a mere 40-50 corporate clients to over 300 clients. I merged the practice with another practice on 1st January 2023 and all corporate secretarial, accounting and tax-related work would be done under the company Raffles Corporate Services Pte Ltd. The team is now 10 strong and we are growing. Recently a few of the local universities wrote to me to ask whether my company would be interested in offering internships to their students. Some of our clients are of a certain calibre. I can walk through many shopping malls and spot my clients’ businesses. We also do the filings for quite a few law firms. We are perhaps cheap and cheerful and hence many do look for our company because our prices are attractive. However, if we do not do good work, I believe that clients will not remain with my company.
On top of running this practice, I also managed to establish a real estate company in Bangkok dealing with Bangkok properties. It is registered in Thailand and we have a small team dealing with international clients. The company does the sale and rental of Bangkok properties but it also does property management where international clients can leave the management of their Bangkok properties to the team. The maintenance and property tax filings will be managed by the local Thai team. The business has been around for over 6 years, surviving the pandemic and we have perhaps a hundred or more clients. I never counted how many clients we dealt with. The YouTube channel is ever-growing. We have grown it to a respectable size. We have over a thousand videos. Mostly location videos where we walk viewers through the property and even the journey from the property to the nearest train station to illustrate the location of the various properties. We have more than 5000 subscribers and I would say a large proportion, if not all of the subscribers are genuine Bangkok property buyers. The response to the content posted is very good which illustrates that the content the viewers are watching is highly relevant to what they are interested in.
Then there is the steakhouse of which I am or was a shareholder. It is located along East Coast Road across the road from i12 Katong Shopping Mall. There are also other outlets and collaborative F&B outlets in Dempsey and Horne Road and outlets in Vietnam. My co-shareholder was my secondary schoolmate. I decided, for ethical reasons, to not eat meat. As a vegetarian, it looked weird that I would be a shareholder of a steakhouse. The business was and is doing well today. However, selling my shares to my friend would remain the best option for me as a vegetarian. I am of course rooting for him to do well in the F&B scene.
When I turned or was about to turn 40, I decided that it would be good for me to add on to the first degree that I obtained. I initially wanted to do a postgraduate course which would add on to my current degree and perhaps become an academic. Maybe lecture in one of the local polytechnics. However, for some reason, a friend managed to convince me that I would make a decent lawyer. I took his advice and now I am in my final year of studies in the SUSS School of Law. I am doing well in law school. For some reason, I find law modules much easier to digest as compared to my studies in my first degree in Economics. I will be taking the bar exam in 2025 and transitioning to practising law. I have aspirations to do corporate work (which is what I am already doing) as well as family law. This year, one of my modules would be to gain some experience with the local courts. I am looking forward to this and will take a few week’s leave off from my company to complete this portion of the module. Yes, my company, of which I own a portion of the shares, is run like a proper business and it employs me. Hence I will still need to apply for leave to be out of the office. I started a blog about my life in law school. You can read my blog here: https://www.justfollowlaw.com/.
So what next? In 2025 I will be joining a law firm (I’ve already secured this) and handing over the reins of my company to the remaining members of the management team. Hopefully, God willing, in time, I will be able to have my own law firm. I do not think I am motivated by money although when running a company, the company’s bottom line is always at the back of my mind. I have always been interested in standing on the side of the less fortunate and I have some ideas about the direction which all my companies and my purported future law firm will take.
In 2025 the corporate secretarial, accounting and employment agency business will have our own permanent office in Manhatten House. This is located very close to the state courts in the Chinatown area. We are presently renting an office along Orchard Road but we purchased a property in December 2023 and will move over after the completion of the sale and purchase at the end of February 2024.
I will be working on more content on investing in stocks and property. I finally have some time I can squirrel away to spend on improving my blog and YouTube Channel. I will be attempting to get back into peak fitness as I reengage with the beautiful sport of cycling. I have always had the mantra that all information should be free. Opinions can be safely shared especially when it comes to investing. The internet has been a great enabler for me in terms of knowledge and I believe that I should be contributing to it as well. As a declaimer, many have come to me asking me for recommendations when it comes to opening a trading account for stocks. I do not have anyone to recommend. As for property, my wife and soon my stepdaughter, are both property agents. So are my close friends. Whenever someone asks me for recommendations, I do refer that someone over. Whatever the case, my articles are free for anyone to read. I will always aim to be as unbiased as possible and speak freely about what I think about whatever forms of investments I blog about.
Have a great 2024 everyone. Thank you for reading my blog. May everyone stay healthy and happy and hopefully the world will become a more peaceful place in 2024.
Yours sincerely,
Daryl
