Singapore's first listed broker: Kim Eng founder Gloria Lee dies aged 97
Gloria Lee founded stock brokerage Kim Eng Holdings, which was sold to Malaysia’s Maybank in 2011.
PHOTO: The Straits Times file
PUBLISHED ONSeptember 07, 2023 3:50 AMByMia Pei
SINGAPORE — Gloria Lee, born Woo Sau Yin, was put to rest following a private funeral last Friday (Sept 1).
Her quiet passing belies a high-profile career in Singapore's stock market.
In 1972, Lee founded stock brokerage which was sold to Malaysia's Maybank in 2011.
In what was then a male-dominated world, her story was an unlikely one.
A former air stewardess who became a housewife, Lee told The Straits Times in 1998 that she went into the broking industry because her doctor had ordered her to keep out of the sun and stop playing so much golf.
"I went into stockbroking to escape the sun," she said.
She started off in the dealing room of the now-dissolved Robert Wee & Co in the late 1960s.
In 1972, she made history as the first woman who bought a seat at the stock exchange, with $700,000 in savings and bank loans.
She named her firm Kim Eng — "Kim" after her late husband Dennis Lee Kim Yew, and "Eng" from the name of a family friend.
Her husband was a founding partner in the law firm Lee & Lee, and the younger brother of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
Kim Eng became Singapore's first listed broker in 1990.
Its public offering attracted $23 billion in subscriptions for an offering of $29.3 million.
The company expanded from Singapore and Malaysia to Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, becoming a household name in the stockbroking industry of the region.
Lee stepped down as chairman and a director of Kim Eng Holdings in 2008, at the age of 82, passing the helm to her son Ronald Ooi Thean Yat.
Maybank later acquired Kim Eng for US$1.4 billion (S$1.9 billion).
The company was taken private and rebranded as Maybank Kim Eng.
The Kim Eng name was dropped in 2021, however, concluding the brokerage's history in Singapore.
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This article was first published in The Business Times. Permission required for reproduction.