Interior designer gets a (tea) break

Straits Times: Sun, Dec 11

Mr Ivan Teo, 36, started Arteastiq tea lounge in Mandarin Gallery early last year to complement his furniture retail business, which came out of his interior design business Haier Living. Initially, the lounge took up part of the furniture store space and was a place for people to contemplate their purchases over a cup of tea. But when the store called Marxx Residence proved a failure after more than a year, Mr Teo wrapped up the business and expanded the tea lounge. 'It is very important to make changes. In business, you have to be prepared to make changes, even if they turn out to be wrong,' he says. The biggest challenge for his business, he says, lies in hiring the right people as some young people give up too easily. But one thing he has learnt is to trust and empower his staff. 'Of what you know, about 60 per cent to 70 per cent can be done by your people... I was a perfectionist but now I'm more relaxed.' He has a degree in interior design and is married to Ms Enah Lim, 35, a regional operations manager in Clarins. Q: Are you a spender or saver? I am a spender. I save $2,000 every month and spend $4,000. Most of it goes to my car. The monthly loan is $2,000 and the petrol costs me another $650. Otherwise, I usually spend only what is necessary or on things that will generate returns in the long run, such as property and watches as their value will be sustained or can grow. I have six credit cards. Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself? I have bought and sold properties. I used to pay $2,800 a month for my property loan. Now, I pay $500 a month for my life insurance coverage. I invested in land through Profitable Plots four years ago but I think it is probably a gone case. (Profitable Plots is being investigated by the Commercial Affairs Department, after some investors alleged that it owed them money.) I paid $15,000 for a 600 sq ft piece of land in Britain, thinking I would get five times the amount in five years. Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like? I grew up in a family of six. My parents ran their own baby products distribution business and taught us the importance of money and making money through hard work. I helped out in the business from a young age and got to know about overheads and about how tough it is to run a business. Q: How did you get interested in investing? My first stock investment was when I bought StarHub shares at 95 cents during its initial public offering in late 2004. My wife told me about it. I am still holding on to the shares. But if I were to sell them today, the returns would be fantastic. StarHub shares were trading at $2.84 in the middle of last week. Q: What property do you own? I am waiting for the right time to buy a shophouse, which I want to turn into a boutique hotel. My first property purchase was a $290,000 Housing Board resale flat in Simei. I bought it with my wife and made $25,000 on the sale. My second property purchase was a new HDB flat in Punggol, which I also bought with my wife. I bought it for $200,000 and sold it for $435,000 a few years ago. Then I bought my first private property, an inter-terrace house in Upper Thomson, for $1.1 million. I rented it out and sold it with the tenancy for $1.2 million within nine months. I made only a $40,000 profit after accounting for expenses like my loan interest. I sold it so that I could use the money for my business. That was in 2009. Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought? A Montblanc watch for $5,600. I have no regrets as you can use a good watch for many years. Q: What's your retirement plan? I think I will need $8,000 a month during my golden years. I plan to be financially independent by the time I am 55. I will still be busy growing my business and investing in properties whenever I have spare cash. Q: Home is now... I live with my parents in a 2,200 sq ft terrace house in Lorong Marzuki. They bought it 30 years back and it is now worth $1.8 million. Q: I drive.... A white Mercedes-Benz E250. [e-mail] WORST AND BEST BETS Q: What is your worst investment to date? It's my furniture retail business, Marxx Residences, at Mandarin Gallery. I invested $250,000 in it and it's all gone. I saw good potential in the business as we designed and manufactured the furniture ourselves at a reasonably low cost. But it failed because of bad management, the high rent and very low human traffic. Q: What is your best investment to date? This is my Arteastiq Tea Lounge, which began operations at the start of last year. I expanded it in April this year and it has now fully taken over the space vacated by the furniture business. I have invested $250,000 in Arteastiq and have been seeing profits of $20,000 to $25,000 a month from April. Source: The Straits Times