Country Heights Holdings Berhad Announces Founder Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew Stepping Down with New Appointments in Top Management

Country Heights Holdings Berhad announced today the stepping down of its Founder and Executive Chairman Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew from the Board of Directors by 1 January 2021 with new appointments in their top management brought in to execute the Group’s new transformation plan to focus on ‘the Enabling of Digital Smart Cities and its Integrated Wellness business’ via the adoption of block chain and platform technologies.

As part of the Digital Transformation plan, the Group also announced that it will be the first Public Listed company on Bursa Malaysia to accept selected crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc for purchase of the Group’s goods and services.

The Group’s transformation has brought in professionals; led by Datuk Jared Lim, Managing Director; Mr Kevin Chen, Financial Director; Mr Ryan Xu, Chief Technology Director and Mr Gerard Lim as Independent Director with these key appointments announced on Bursa earlier this month.

 

Datuk Jared Lim as a new Managing Director will bring in his experience and leadership in financial engineering, private equity investments and digital transformation expertise. Mr Kevin Chen has a proven track record in investment management, real estate, fintech and is one of the leaders in the block chain industry in Asia.  Mr Ryan Xu, Chief Technology Director is one of the pioneers in the block chain industry and has founded numerous block chain platforms and technologies.   Mr Gerard Lim as a new independent director will bring his 28 years of experience in Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector having just stepped down from his role as Chief Digital Officer at the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

 

“I have full confidence in the newly appointed management team to transform our brick and mortar business into a digitally enabled ecosystem which will unearth the value of our assets,” commented Founder and Executive Chairman Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew who will assume the title of Founder and Patron of the Country Heights Group. He intends to focus on his private and charitable ventures including his Labuan licensed Investment Bank, Golden Touch Investment bank which will utilize the latest block chain technologies for Security Token Offerings.

  

Transformation Plan:   
Reposition the Group as a Digital Smart City Enabler and Integrated Wellness Ecosystems 

The transformation and restructuring plan will focus on unlocking intrinsic value of the current assets of the group.

The background and experience of the new management will allow the Group to adopt the latest technologies and platforms to enhance the value of our offerings. This transformation plan will see synergies between Country Heights Holdings Berhad and technology partners including Huawei Malaysia, Touch Point International and Collinstar Capital.  A technology partnership agreement is expected to be entered into before the end of the year.

The transformation plan will begin with Mines Wellness City in the Mines Resort City township and provide the following :

a)      Malaysia First Fully WIFI 6 Coverage and 5G

b)      Smart Office Campus: 1G bps for desktop and fully wireless

c)      Learning Community: Huawei Ideahub, Cloud Classroom, Huawei ASEM Academy

d)      Smart Health Community: Golf, health check and medical treatment

e)      Cloud Start-up Community: New technology incubation, IoT and blockchain.

This also sets the direction for the Group’s further investment into its Wellness operations which will result in GHHS Healthcare being one of the anchor tenants in Mines Wellness City.

The partnership with Huawei will focus on the infrastructure development of Mines Wellness City via the provision of 5G and Wifi 6 for this township by the end of 2020.  This will make Mines Resort City the first township in Malaysia to be 5G and Wifi 6 enabled (9.6 Gbps – over 2 times faster than 5G).

In realizing the digital transformation and Internet of Things (IoTs), the partnership with Touch Point International will focus the Smart City digital platform.  The collaboration objective is to digitally connect with the various stakeholders: residents, management, merchants, and visitors to Mines Wellness City.  Touch Point International is currently the platform technology partner for Putrajaya City.

The collaboration with Collinstar Capital is to provide infrastructure investment to benefit and enhance Mines Wellness City.  Collinstar Capital is a Melbourne based investment management group and best known for funding some of the top performing Security Tokens in the Block Chain eco system with over $500 million of assets under their management.  Their expertise in blockchain investment will strengthen this transformation plan.  

New Appointment Fact Sheet:

 

Datuk Jared Lim, Managing Director:

Datuk Jared Lim, as a new Managing Director will bring in his experience and leadership in financial engineering, private equity investments and digital transformation.  His experience includes co-founding a private equity group called Tremendous Asia Partners (TAP), an Asian-owned and locally grown private equity fund focused on the consumers space in South East Asia adding value through design and digital strategies. TAP focuses on the consumer industry with emphasis on its 5 pillars - F&B services and product; Retail, Education, Healthcare and Media & Entertainment.

He is also the Non-Executive Chairman of Tremendous Entertainment Holdings ("TEH");  Executive Director of Sino Hua-An International Berhad, a company listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia which is in the process of diversifying into the Energy storage and Internet of Things (IoT) space. He sits on the Executive Panel on CENDANA (Cultural Economy Development Agency).

Mr Kevin Chen, Financial Director

Mr Kevin Chen is one of the pioneer leaders in the Chinese blockchain industry and is experienced in financial technology (fintech) and capital investment.  He founded KJ Strategic Investment in 2007 and was the Managing Director until 2012. During that time, the company successfully invested and managed 5 hotels in Australia. In 2015, Kevin co-founded Collinstar Capital in Melbourne, Australia as an Executive Director. Collinstar is one of the better-known players in the blockchain industry and under Kevin's tenure, built bitcoin mining facilities with a capacity of nearly 300,000 kilowatts of electricity load. Kevin has been involved as an investor and promoter for numerous Block Chain projects including "Hcash”, "MOF", etc with a total investment value of over RMB5 billion. 

Kevin is also the Chief Strategy Officer of China Fortune, a company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Kevin has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Centre Queensland University and a Master’s degree in Advertising from RMIT University.

 

Mr Ryan Xu, Chief Technology Director

Mr Ryan Xu is a former Nuclear Engineer turned blockchain technologist and leader.  He is a known advocate of Blockchain technologies in Asia and has even authored a book in Mandarin called “The Future of Blockchain” in 2018. He has created and invested in numerous platforms and technologies to enhance connectivity in the Blockchain universe. Ryan has a Bachelor’s Degree in Information and Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Ryan joined China National Nuclear Corporation in Beijing (the largest investor of nuclear power plants in China), shortly upon graduation. He completed the 401 Institute Nuclear Engineering training and was the Senior Engineer for the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant.

In 2012, Ryan-co founded Rongyitou Internet Financial Services Co Ltd in Shenzhen, an intermediary wealth management platform focusing on matching borrowers with lenders online. The company won the Annual Financial Innovation Award at the Southern Metropolis Daily's 2014 Sales Awards with a cumulative transaction volume of RMB400 million.

In 2014, Ryan co-founded Blockchain Global Group in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Blockchain Group is currently one of the largest and fastest growing blockchain ventures in Australia and its business includes blockchain cloud data centres, digital asset exchanges and blockchain incubation centres. In 2015, Ryan co-founded Collinstar Capital in Melbourne, Australia. Collinstar Capital is a fully license financial company with assets under management of over AUD$500m. Its investment scope focused on cloud computing and blockchain related investments as well as real estate, energy and technology.

Mr Gerard Lim, Independent Director

Gerard brings with him a unique blend of experiences involving entrepreneurship in start-ups to delivering solutions for some of the world’s largest corporations and even operating within the Malaysian Government’s machinery via its agency (MDEC), statutory body (MCMC) and government linked companies (TM, Axiata).

He has implemented many successful digital transformation and innovative E-solutions for various Governments, Government Linked Companies (GLCs), private corporations, telecom operators, conglomerates and multinationals (MNCs) around the world delivering specialised solutions in interactive digital media, E-business solutions, converged IP communications, digital marketing, e- & m-commerce, mobile apps, social media, cloud & edge computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics (BDA), Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to create intelligent actionable insights that boost value creation and sustainability.

He is a specialist writer and regular seminar speaker sharing his thought leadership on the subject of digital directions, innovation and entrepreneurship. Gerard has had two (2) weekly newspaper columns; one called “Multimedia Directions” and some years later a separate column called “the Visible Web”.

In 2011, Gerard joined the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to craft policies, plans and programs for the Digital Malaysia initiative. In 2013, he was the founding team of Axiata Digital and was instrumental in designing the Axiata Digital Innovation Fund (ADIF). And in 2015, was the Vice President and Head of Digital for Webe Digital Sdn Bhd, subsidiary of TM, where the customer journey was conducted entirely online and digitally.

In 2017, Gerard was the founding Chief Executive Officer of Atilze Digital; an IoT solutions and services provider that offers the cloud connected intelligence platform for Connected Car, Intelligent City and Smart Agriculture. Atilze Digital is a subsidiary of G3 Global Bhd; a main market public listed company on Bursa Malaysia.

From January 2019 to 31 August 2020, Gerard was Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) delivering use of 5G, rolled out Digital TV and started National Digital ID. 

About Country Heights Holdings Berhad:  

With the motto of “Ever Searching for Better Living”, Country Heights Group of Companies is founded by Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew and officially incorporated on the 10^th of May 1984 as a private limited company. Starting of as a property developer with the unique touch to deliver beautiful country-style homes in Malaysia, the company was listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia in 1994.  Today, Country Heights Holdings Berhad is a lifestyle property development in the of Hospitality, Wellness, Lifestyle, Tourism, Automotive and Investments.  The company has strong track-record as the master developer of over 560 million square foot of space around the world, and its past projects include some of the world’s well-known landmarks such as the London ExCel Exhibition and Conference Center, the Mines Wellness City in peninsula Malaysia, Borneo Highlands Resort in East Malaysia.  To find out more, log on to the company’s website at www.countryheights.com.my