5 things to know about presidential hopeful Ng Kok Song

Another person has decided to throw his hat into the ring — Ng Kok Song, former GIC chief investment officer, has announced that he's running for president today (July 19).

The 75-year-old turned up at the Elections Department (ELD) to collect forms this morning, joining former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and entrepreneur George Goh as hopefuls in the upcoming presidential election.

After collecting his forms, Ng told reporters outside ELD that he has three reasons to run for president: to give Singaporeans a choice; because he has been involved in building up the reserves; and because he is independent.

Here are five things to know about him.

1. He's very, very good with money

Ng has had decades worth of experience in dealing with finance. He began his career in 1970 with the Ministry of Finance, where he worked as an investment analyst for the overseas investment department.

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He then took on the role of managing Singapore's reserves at Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) after the central bank's inception in 1971.

Ng joined sovereign wealth fund GIC in 1986, and became chief investment officer in 2007 through till his retirement in 2013.

Since then, Ng has been overseeing Avanda Investment Management, an asset management company he founded in 2015, as well as the Wealth Management Institute, of which he is founder and chairman emeritus.

2. Hall of fame in trade

Ng was also the founding chairman of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (Simex) between 1984 and 1987.

Reportedly the first financial futures exchange in Asia, his contributions with Simex earned him a spot in the Futures Industry Association's (FIA) Hall of Fame in 2009.

The FIA is a trade association in the United States.

In 2012, Ng also received the Meritorious Service Medal for his contributions to Singapore.

3. He has a fiancee 30 years his junior

Ng is currently engaged to Sybil Lau, a Canada-born Singaporean who's also savvy when it comes to finance.

Lau, 45, worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs for two years after her graduation and has reportedly been managing her family's finances since 2009.

At present, Lau's LinkedIn shows that she's a board member of SG Enable, Well Health Technologies Corporation and the Dailo Family Office.

Ng met Lau four years ago.

He has three children, aged between 33 and 50, with his previous wife, Patricia, who died in 2005 due to stomach cancer.

4. He has his own rags-to-riches story

Ng's childhood wasn't an easy one — he was born into a family with 11 children and grew up in a mud-floored attap house in Kangkar, or Sengkang today.

To help support his family, Ng helped his father — a fish auctioneer — to sort fish, and also took care of the family's chickens.

However, the area was "infested with gangsters", Ng recalled in an interview with the Straits Times in 2012, and shared it was only through a Catholic church and the teachings from Montfort School, that he kept on the straight and narrow to focus on his studies.

Ng later won a Public Service Commission scholarship to study Physics at the National University of Singapore (at the time known as the University of Singapore), and later earned a Sloan's Master degree in management from Stanford University.

5. He was Lee Kuan Yew's meditation mantra teacher

An avid meditator, Ng caught the eye of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew who asked him for tips on meditation back in 2010, SPH Razor reported.

"Mr Lee rang me up one evening in 2010, I thought he rang me up about some business matter concerning the GIC but he came onto the line and said, 'Song, I heard from Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan that you practise meditation, can you come and teach me?'"

Ng found out that Lee had been learning meditation together with his son, PM Lee Hsien Loong, during the latter's recovery from cancer.

"Mr Lee said he had been trying to practise it on and off but found it very difficult because he kept falling asleep!" Ng said.

khooyihang@asiaone.com