The company has a huge footing in Malaysia and owns brands such as Laura Ashley and Metrojaya Department Store 

by NURUL SUHAIDI 

MALAYAN United Industries Bhd (MUI), since opening its door more than six decades ago, has evolved into an international conglomerate from a humble beginning of small toothbrush manufacturing company. 

The new CEO and chairman of the group Andrew Khoo Boo Yeow shares his insight on the transformative journey to catalyse the group to keep up with a new era of business and corporate operation. 

MUI Group is a company that has a huge footing in Malaysia and owns brands such as Laura Ashley and Metrojaya Department Store, as well as makes and sells confectionery products “Crispy” chocolate rice and cereal bars that have been around since the 1970s. 

For over six decades, the company has been a diversified group covering Malaysia and UK that is concentrated in different segments including hotels, retail, property development, food and confectionery and financial services. 

“Our group has a rich culture and started a generational business founded by my father Tan Sri Datuk Khoo Kay Peng. His journey as a successor began when he eventually became a major investor in a company during his career in the banking industry,” he told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) in an interview. 

Encouraged by a friend to take over because he was a significant investor, he later decided to leave the banking industry, took over the business, changed its name to the MUI Group, and turned it into the company we know today. 

“Traditionally hotels, hospitality and retail have been the largest contributors for group revenue.” 

“Although the pandemic has hit and stalled the growth plan in some of our sectors, we have seen a sign of recovery and things are picking up again as before,” he told TMR. 

In January 2018, Andrew took over the helm of the company and actively steered it and put the foundation in place. While doing so, he contends that the challenges in the business environment today are different in comparison to his father’s time. 

Among others, he recognised that bringing in the right skills is a challenge and the group don’t necessarily have all the skills in organisation to cater to all segments it serves. 

“And through my role, I aspire to rebuild the business, implement a strategic approach, to be more asset-light and lifestyle-driven,” he told TMR. 

“For example, for Corus hotels, it is more about just selling bedrooms. It is about creating a brand and immersive experience to intrigue the customer to go for their getaway. My plan is to rationalise the group so we can move forward with the purpose while staying true to our values and have a greater impact in the community,” he said. 

Prior to taking over as the CEO, he had a short stint with the company back in 2000s in the managerial position, but left for a personal venture and not until 2018, he finally came back again when his father was seriously planning to retire. 

To him, the aspiration is not only to transform the key sector, but also to simplify all the business segments, inspire the team, and bring a dynamic perspective and ideas into business. 

“As an entrepreneur, I need to wear many hats as it requires a lot of multitasking and switching from one subject to another and not everyone has that ability. Luckily for me, I think I have diverse skills and for me, that helps in that regard,” he added. 

He shares that his various experience working prior to the role in a way helped him to prep and sharpen his expertise for this transformative business journey now. 

“I also owe it to my father as he always encouraged me to learn and experience outside the company first. He also put me in a few different departments from the front desk to the managerial role and that helped me to probably train up,” he added. 

Despite the challenges, he is committed to facilitating the team, and is there to execute ideas and ensure he is the next generation of family-business successors. 

“As a leader, it is important for me to inspire my team to believe in the idea and my role is to execute them.” 

“I have to provide a clear direction and paint a vision of where we need to go while staying true to our values,” he said. 

He added that at MUI, it takes collaborative partnership seriously, as one of its strategic approaches for the group to step out of its comfort zone, scale up faster and exchange expertise. 

Partnership is also to complement its dedicated team and resources, as well as cover the skills that they don’t necessarily have in the organisation in a capacity of a diversified group. 

“We have the resources, infrastructure, and senior leadership but we don’t have the day-to-day focus or expertise for each segment and we believe partnership is to help us optimise resources while achieving a similar win. Partnership is like a corporate marriage of all sorts, hence it is important to pick the partner who aligns with your long-term vision and goals so as to allow the company to scale up faster.” 

He added that usually it takes months of courtship, not a one-day conversation to ensure both are comfortable with the notion of working together, and not on the same page and the outcomes. 

With his vast experience, Andrew is confident with the market landscape and set to revolutionise the company even more. 

Any partnership or acquisition results need to be profitable not only in terms of revenue, but also in terms of a positive bottom line including Ebitda, and quality earnings. 

As part of the partnership, earlier this year, the group diversified its revenue through Pan Malaysia Corp Bhd and acquired the fast-food chain A&W Malaysia where the company has a 51% controlling stake. 

Through the acquisition, it is looking to achieve 100 outlets by 2023, and plans to open 25 outlets in a year. 

“The acquisition has been extremely positive and we will also soon be opening a few outlets in Sabah since over 50% of readily available outlets of the A&W are located in Klang Valley,” Andrew said. 

At present, the group has grown with revenue of over US $52 million, has two of its subsidiaries on Bursa’s list namely MUI Properties Bhd and Pan Malaysia Holding Bhd. 

The property segment is another important contributor to the business, and he said projects like the Industrial Park have been expanding in terms of both revenues and profitability. 

“As for the property, we are planning to launch a few more projects, township, mixed-use projects. We have launched an Industrial Park, which has sold out, so that’s done very well for us,” he added. 

However, he said as it moves toward becoming more asset-light, the approach includes deleveraging the business by selling certain assets in order to become more nimble. 

“We are selling underutilised assets as we had recently, freeing up the cash so it can be utilised for a better purpose such as more investment and growing more outlets,” he added. 

Meanwhile, for financial services, MUI also owns a universal broker licence, including the stock broking and fund management business, which has a small profit contribution due to its challenging nature. 

The group also recently set a new milestone and launched a new Metrojaya store in Lalaport Mall and is looking to revamp a similar store in Kota Kinabalu next year. 

He stated that the Lalaport’s path has been positive thus far and that it anticipates greater growth once the tenants are all occupied and the mall has finished construction. 

Its retail segment, on the other hand, also needs to adapt to digital as e-commerce becomes an integral part of the business and daily lives of the shoppers. 

“For me, the growing e-commerce in the retail space is not about the competition but how we keep pace and adapt to the changes and ensure we are ahead of the competitors,” he said. 

“But for us, we want to be a bit more of a market leader and while doing so, look forward to predicting new trends and cooperation to strengthen them through collaboration with bigger commerce players,” he added. 

Complementing the digital transformation, the group is looking at the cryptocurrency and non-fungible token (NFT) space as part of the digital roadmap as well as expanding its investment portfolio. 

“Among others, one of the things that we are going to do is related to the web 3.0 blockchain NFT space which will be set to roll out soon,” he told TMR. 

This at the same time will help the start-ups, SMEs and local young founders to push forward and contribute to the change in the community. 

Asked whether the group considered expansion with Hong Kong or Singapore he stressed that the investment has been part of the growth of the company and it had extensive investment including the UK, Australia and the US, and even parts of Canada, China and Hong Kong. 

“As a multinational company, we need to have an international mindset and diversify the investment risks,” he added. 

Today, as an instrumental person for growth, he will continue to embrace the challenges and believe every step is a work in progress. 

“In the end, it is not about what the competition is doing, but it’s a sign that those sectors are evolving. As a business, we need to ask ourselves if are we keeping up with the pace and changes or letting the business fall behind,” he concluded. 

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• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition