Our mission is to excel while consolidating our resources and expertise towards new challenges beyond our existing 4 core business centres:
The Group traces its beginning as a sole proprietorship in 1975, when Mr. Mohamed Salleh Marican started a men’s tailoring business, which failed 4 months later. Restarting the same business five months on, he aptly named it Second Chance. It succeeded and within two years he had three outlets. Always dreaming of making it big, he realised the need to venture into other businesses.
In 1978, Mr. Salleh diversified into men’s ready-to-wear clothing under the brand name of Second Chance and by 1988 had twenty-five stores in Singapore and Malaysia. His biggest challenge came the following year when suddenly sales tumbled and many outlets became unprofitable. After understanding the causes and realising that the situation was insurmountable, Salleh made the painful decision to close all the stores. By 1992, the chain was down to four stores when he opened First Lady, a boutique retailing Malay ladies traditional clothing. The resounding success of First Lady let him to venture into retailing gold jewellery under the name of Golden Chance.
In 1997, Second Chance Enterprises was listed on SESDAQ, the second board of the Stock Exchange of Singapore. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 gave the Group an opportunity when property prices fell. The Group began purchasing prime retail properties at good value and the Company’s name was changed to Second Chance Properties to reflect its serious intention of making property its main core activity.
In March 2004, the Company was transferred to the Main Board of SGX. Today, rental income is the top contributor to Group’s profits. Mr Salleh believes his success is due to the backing of a strong team and the Group’s ability to overcome setbacks by making the right decisions that led the Company to bounce back to higher levels of success.
We merge brain with brawn, modern with classic, and capital with insight to steer our Group through good times and uncertain period. We focus our strengths and overcome our weaknesses and build our resources towards new horizons of opportunities. Opportunities that will echo our values, our beliefs, our culture and convert these into profitable causes for the Group as well as beneficial impact on our surroundings and society as a whole.
SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY
FINANCIAL
PRUDENCE
CORPORATE
ETHICS
OPPORTUNISTIC
GROWTH
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
As part of each and every one’s efforts in the Group to be a good corporate citizen, we believe in giving back to society what we have gained. We will endeavour to spend at least 1% of our Group’s net profit of the preceding year on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes. We shall strive to ensure that our resources are channelled to efforts or programmes we can all be proud of.
FINANCIAL PRUDENCE
We draw on our strong foundation of resources and operational competencies to compete on prudent cost measures, equipped with wise investment strategies at the knock of lucrative opportunities that will come our way. Our Group is ever striving to consolidate its assets and capabilities to capitalise on the latest market trends and business prospects that will help push our Group forward with minimal risks towards more growth and profitability.
CORPORATE ETHICS
Integrity and honesty are key ingredients to good corporate governance for our Group. We have introduced many schemes and practices over the years to ensure high standard of corporate governance. A Casino Self-Exclusion Policy that is mandated for all executive directors and key management personnel and a well-received Whistle Blower Policy for all (from top management to the staffs on the retail floor) provided strong deterrence to any potential breakdown in our pursuit for governance excellence. The Fraud Prevention Framework, led by the CEO, is a continuous process where we identify, discuss and create application policies to counter any potential fraud risks that may affect our Group’s reputation, financial and governance standings.
OPPORTUNISTIC GROWTH
We are always identifying potential opportunities for the Group. We have plans to launch an online ecommerce portal selling apparels and accessories. The apparel business has been our pioneer core unit for the last 40 years and we can amplify and augment our decades of know-how and experiences by positioning ourselves as an established online retailer to reach more potential customers.
The operational Mega First Lady in KL, Malaysia, has proven to be an exciting opportunity for the Group to study the potential of having multiple mega buildings in the Peninsula, with fresh business models – while closing down small marginally profitable outlets.
We feel the future pulsating for more growth with key planning in our businesses to consolidate our strengths and resources as we remain poised in challenging times.
PROPERTY INVESTMENT
Property investment is a cyclical business and we are taking an opportunistic approach to it. We believe that the property cycle has reached its peak and forecasting that it will slide off the curve. We plan to put on hold our expansion in the current property mood and shall move in again when opportunity arises or when we believe the time is right.
As of Aug 2015, the appraised value of our properties is S$220.8 million with a net lettable area of 43.701sq ft and a 100% occupancy rate. Visit here to see the list of our properties as FY 2015.
FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT
The company and one of its subsidiaries invest in stocks, mainly REITS for the long term. Through another subsidiary, we trade in bonds and stocks. This segment recorded a profit of S$2.27 million in FY 2015 with contribution of revenue amounting to S$5.21 million.
APPAREL RETAIL
We believe that bigger and more sophisticated specialty retail stores would be the way to go in the future. A newly acquired 10-storey building in a prime area in Kuala Lumpur was turned into our maiden Mega First Lady. With plans to have more specialty retail stores in Malaysia and the region, we will be able to improve our economies of scale and operative grip for our retail sector.
GOLD RETAIL
Our sole gold retail outlet in Singapore contributed over S$15 million in revenue for FY 2015. The future outlook for retailing in gold might not be as profitable as the past, however, we continue to dominate the Malay market in Singapore amidst the trend fluctuations of consumer gold purchases.
As part of the Company’s continuous effort to ensure that good corporate governance practices are being adopted, the Company has also implemented a “Whistleblower” Policy to provide an avenue for employees, suppliers, tenants and customers to voice their grievances or concerns about any malpractices involving the Company without any fear or repercussions. More so, the Company has even implemented a strong deterrent by offering a cash reward to any person whether employees, suppliers, business associates or the general public who provides specific, reliable and credible information or evidence of fraudulent activities by any of the Company’s Executive Director and Management Team as listed in the Company’s Annual Report ($50,000 cash reward) and all other employees (up to $2,000 cash reward) which leads to admission of guilt by the accused or leads to successful prosecution.
Second Chance Properties Pte. Ltd. requires its directors, managers and employees to observe high standards of business and personal ethics in the conduct of their duties and responsibilities. We must practice honesty and integrity in fulfilling our responsibilities and comply with all applicable laws and regulations. We believe that people are generally honest and ethical in their business dealings. We are obliged to ensure that this is practiced within the organization.
60 Paya Lebar Road
#07-20 Paya Lebar Square
Singapore 409051
Telephone: 67456911
Facsimile: 67456955
Email: contact@secondchance.com.sg
