Dr Wee receives Asean Business Awards Legacy Award (Singapore)
KUALA LUMPUR: United Overseas Bank Ltd (UOB) chairman emeritus and adviser Dr Wee Cho Yaw, received the Asean Business Awards Legacy Award (Singapore) recently.
In a press statement, UOB noted that as a firm believer of the business potential of Asean, Dr Wee extended his banking empire into the region.
Besides growing the UOB founded by his father in 1935 by acquiring five banks in Singapore, he bought two banks in Thailand, two in Indonesia and one in the Philippines.
In addition, the UOB Group has incorporated banks in Malaysia and Vietnam, as well as branches in Brunei and Myanmar.
Today, UOB Group has 500 offices and branches worldwide, of which more than 90 per cent are based in Asean.
For his business contributions in the region, Dr Wee was named Asean Businessman of the Year in 1995 by the Asean Business Forum. In 1999, the Asian Bankers’ Association recognised his “outstanding lifetime service to the development of banking and business relations in the Asia Pacific”.
In Singapore, Dr Wee is not only a successful banker and entrepreneur whose business interests extend to property, hotel and pharmaceutical industries, he is also an active community leader and philanthropist. He joined the UOB Board in 1958 and became the Bank’s managing director two years later.
He helmed the bank as chairman and CEO from 1974. Under him, UOB Group’s assets expanded from S$2.8 billion to S$340 billion over the next five decades. The group’s market value rose from S$320 million to S$33 billion.
In recognition of his business acumen and entrepreneurial achievements, as well as his civic contributions, the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University conferred Dr Wee with an Honorary Doctor of Letters in 2008 and 2014 respectively.
In 2011, he was conferred the Distinguished Service Order, the highest national day award given by the Singapore Government that year.
Dr Wee has always attributed his success to his passion for banking and his being “at the right place, at the right time”.
But when Dr Wee was named Singapore Businessman of the Year for a second time in 2001, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the current Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong said, “Wee Cho Yaw is one of Singapore’s shrewdest bankers and businessmen.