We completed 419 residential and 173 industrial units during the year. We acquired a residential site in Woodlands on which we shall build a 443-unit executive condominium, La Casa. This will be our second EC after our very successful Whitewater in Pasir Ris. We also completed two hotel upgrading projects. Albert Court Hotel has been given a fresh, updated image along with the re-configuration of units at Albert Court retail mall, while Changi Village Hotel made its debut in May 2004 as a hip resort hotel targeted at business and leisure travellers.

Boosted by record high visitor arrivals, our hotels enjoyed higher occupancy and room rates in 2004. The Fullerton continues to be our highest yielding hotel asset. Most of our other hotels recorded occupancy levels averaging 75 per cent. But, sadly, room rates are still below levels recorded in 2002.

With an improving regional economy and resultant pickup in business activity, our portfolio of service apartments bettered occupancies to 85 per cent in 2004, up from 75 per cent in 2003.

2004 was a busy year for Yeo Hiap Seng with the successful launch of new products in the stable of brands under YEO’s – JUSTEA, H-TWO-O and PINK DOLPHIN. In barely a year, JUSTEA has emerged the market leader in the fruit tea segment in Malaysia. YEO’s also participated as a co-title sponsor of the S-League. These efforts helped to reinvigorate the YEO’s brand and enhance its market presence.

Last year, two of our developments were featured on the international stage. River Place represented Singapore at the world acclaimed Venice Biennale while The Fullerton was conferred the USA-based Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence 2004 in recognition of its success in urban land use practice.

On our organisational development front, we have set a designation for every year since 1999 in our ongoing programme to build our brand and achieve our mission to emerge as the Developer of Choice. 2004 was designated as our Year of Leadership to provide the impetus for our people to show leadership in driving the necessary changes that will bring real improvements to our business in the years ahead.
As we usher in 2005, I see the need for more work to be done in this area. I want to share with you something of import that I read about Leadership and Leaders and relate this to our context.

The best leaders operate in four dimensions of Vision, Reality, Ethics, and Courage .

The Visionary leader thinks big, thinks new, thinks ahead. The vision of our founder - my father - as the first leader of our organisation was not different from that of the many self-made entrepreneurs of his time. That vision was to build a business that would endure. Our task today is to build on this early vision of our first-generation leader to carry Far East Organization into a new era, to be able to continue satisfying new desires and to sustain a durable business.

As leaders, we must face Reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. Operating in Reality means having to grapple with hard facts and figures every day because our business demands this of us. Operating in Reality compels us to interpret hard facts and figures honestly and objectively.

The property market in Singapore has experienced seven very difficult years. We weathered this dark period to emerge a leaner, more effective organisation as we made changes and tough decisions to restructure and reshape our organisation to emerge with a greater focus on what mattered most to our business.

We have made some progress. But the reality remains that we have to improve on revenue generation. Much remains to be done to recoup the revenue levels that our properties enjoyed during the peak years of the 1990s.

And as we go about our business, we must operate with Ethics, which are guided by our core values. These values as encapsulated in BUILD, with Integrity at its heart, must be embedded in our behaviour and actions. Ethics guide us to do the right thing, not only for customers but also for our business partners, our colleagues and the organisation right through.

Courage is a must for leaders. Courage is borne out of will and this means being able to take a stand and having a personal commitment. Think what the saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” means to you. To succeed, you must will yourself to do the things that assure success. Often, this entails change; sometimes great change. So great that it is best described as Transformation. With transformation, come vast and deep improvements. As leaders, we must all have the courage to change what is familiar to what is relevant, and embrace what will bring improvements.

Do we have the commitment and will to challenge age-old attitudes: our worldview, our beliefs about our own capabilities and about what’s possible? If we do not fundamentally change our way of doing things, our results will not be different. Serious change must start with ourselves. Only then can it move into the three pillars of our business operation – people, processes and products.
Leadership is about doing the right things and when all these snap in place, then we shall get the right results and achieve our goals. Through the last few years at Far East Organization, we have shown that we can manage first and second-level change as a people. In our first phase of development, we have introduced many new models of operations, raised the quality of our products and put in place sound business systems. We have a good sense of which business models work best for us but the inherent processes, people management and product delivery systems need further refinement and proper execution. We must now go deeper.

We are at a point of inflection where we must make the important transition to our next phase of growth. This involves making third-level changes in the way we operate so that we can be a more vital and robust business organisation with strong sales and revenues. And as Singapore’s largest property developer, it is contingent upon us to respond positively and lead the market into a new growth cycle. When the recovery takes root, there will be interesting opportunities for private developers to participate in the government’s initiatives to seek new frontiers in development concepts and upgrade our city into a truly exceptional metropolis.

We can make 2005 this crucial turning point if we have the collective will and commitment to be true leaders. We can succeed if we have unity of Vision, move with a firm sense of business Reality, on a path that is steered by Ethics and powered by Courage to make our contributions count. Let us resolve to make 2005 the Year of true Leadership.