SINGAPORE – A successful banker, revered community leader and respected mentor – this is how family, colleagues and friends of Mr Wee Cho Yaw fondly remember him and his legacy after he died at the age of 95 on Feb 3.
Under the banking titan’s leadership for more than five decades, UOB saw its assets increase from $2.8 billion to more than $253 billion in 2013, when Mr Wee stepped down as chairman. The branch network of Singapore’s third-largest bank also expanded from 75 to more than 500 branches and offices globally over the same period.
Mr Wee Ee Cheong, UOB chief executive and Mr Wee’s son, said his father not only built a legacy as a renowned business and community leader, but was also the cornerstone of his family’s life.
“Like many of his generation, he was a man of few words and believed in tough love,” the CEO, one of Mr Wee’s five children, said at a memorial service held at the Woodlands Memorial funeral parlour and live-streamed on the evening of Feb 6.
“Importantly, his actions spoke louder than words… Though busy with work, he would always find quality time to bond with us, instilling in us values and principles to guide us through life.”
As a businessman, the late Mr Wee led UOB’s steady expansion and contributed to the consolidation of Singapore’s banking industry through various acquisitions by his bank.
In 1958, he was appointed to the board of United Chinese Bank (UCB) – the lender co-founded by his father Wee Kheng Chiang – and became its managing director two years later. UCB changed its name to United Overseas Bank, or UOB, in 1965, the same year that the bank opened its first overseas branch in Hong Kong.
A banking titan
Mr Wee succeeded his father as chairman and chief executive of UOB Group in 1974, although he had already acquired a stellar reputation before that.
In the late 1960s, he was known as Ah Sai, Hokkien for lion, said Mrs Ong-Ang Ai Boon, director of the Association of Banks in Singapore.
“The market said he was somebody they had to kind of watch and look out for, because he was very dynamic and savvy,” she said in a video shown at the memorial service.
Mr Wee saw UOB through eight acquisitions, including that of Chung Khiaw Bank, which was larger than UOB at the time. The bank gained control of Chung Khiaw in 1971 after fending off more than half a dozen rivals.
Three decades later, Mr Wee sealed his most high-profile deal. In 2001, he beat rival DBS Bank to acquire Overseas Union Bank (OUB), then South-east Asia’s fourth-largest bank. Mr Wee had personally visited OUB founder George Lien Ying Chow to convince him and the Lien family to sell their stakes to his bank under the deal, which valued OUB at $10 billion.
This came even as the industry was still grappling with the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
UOB group chief financial officer Lee Wai Fai, who joined the bank in 1989, said that Mr Wee was a decisive but cautious man.