Published December 23, 2008

Boards must bear blame for the crisis, says man who's seen it all

S'pore will ride storm, says outgoing CapitaLand deputy chairman Owyang

By UMA SHANKARI
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(SINGAPORE) Outgoing CapitaLand deputy chairman Hsuan Owyang has been closely tracking Wall Street every day for the past 56 years, and so the current financial crisis came as no surprise to him.

'We have seen many recessions before, but the financial system has never been challenged this way before.'
- Mr Owyang

But he remains confident that corporate Singapore will survive the onslaught - although it cannot escape unscathed, he warned.

And while many have been pointing fingers at bankers, the regulators and the management teams at the various failed (and floundering) banks for causing the current downturn, Mr Owyang - who in his time in Singapore has sat on the boards of the Housing and Development Board, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings - holds the many boards of directors accountable as well.

'The entire crisis can be summed up in six words: greedy bankers, incompetent boards and complacent regulators,' he said in his final press interview before leaving Singapore to spend his retirement in the United States.

The 80-year-old Mr Owyang, who is a US citizen, should know. In addition to sitting on numerous boards during his more than four decades in Singapore, he has also helped to run Overseas Union Bank, POSBank and CapitaLand. He has also chalked up about 12 years of experience on Wall Street with a broking firm.

Mr Owyang has chaired the judging panel of the Singapore Business Awards for many years, and has been instrumental in building up the Awards' reputation over the years.

A director's job, he says, is to monitor and advise. It is with the monitoring role that directors fell short before the present crisis, he feels. 'The job is to check if the CEO (chief executive officer) is leading the company well. If not, something must be done.'

Mr Owyang also shared his belief that corporate Singapore will be able to survive the crisis, but only after taking many hits.

'We will all get through - America, Singapore and the world - but at a very high cost,' he predicted. 'We have seen many recessions before, but the financial system has never been challenged this way before.'

Mr Owyang has warned of the crisis in interviews before, as far back as 2000. The problem over the last few years, he explains, was that the bull market was running on ahead too quickly. It was only a matter of time before the pendulum swung the other way.

Right now, no one knows where the bottom will be, he said. 'But banks such as DBS are not going to collapse . . . CapitaLand, I think will come through this thing well. But when the storm is so big, everyone will be hit anyway.'

Smaller companies, on the other hand, are especially likely to suffer, with little reserves to call on. Singapore, he warns, has yet to feel the effects of the crisis as the wage cuts and layoffs have not fully kicked in.

'Eventually, when all the dust has settled, we will come out a better society,' Mr Owyang said. 'The new house we build will be free of all the handicaps of the past.'

But even after the dust settles, Mr Owyang expects the US to continue to lead the world on the financial stage: 'Asia's growth potential is there but it cannot lead the world. China cannot replace the US, at least not in the first 50 years of this century. And America has a tendency for self-renewal.'

Singapore's role, he said, is not expected to change that much. The country's strength is its political leadership's flexibility, which should allow it to recover fast.