Two dead, four injured in car crash on ECP

Two dead, four injured in car crash on ECP
Published on May 2, 2014 8:04 AM

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The mangled remains of the white Volkswagen that crashed on East Coast Parkway yesterday. — PHOTO: LIANHE WANBAO

By Grace Chua

A car crash at dawn yesterday left four people injured and two dead, including the director of a local magazine publishing group.

Mr Jamie Ho, 33, a director of Magazines Integrated, or m(int), was driving a white Volkswagen with five passengers in it when it crashed into a guardrail and a tree at the Marine Vista exit of the East Coast Parkway.

The car struck the guardrail with enough force to tear up chunks of concrete anchoring it down, and ended up crushed and mangled on a grassy divider at the expressway exit.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it received a call about the accident at 7.34am, and sent a fire engine, a Red Rhino emergency vehicle, three ambulances and two other support vehicles to the scene.

Rescuers found Mr Ho and a 29-year-old woman trapped in the front of the car, and another passenger pinned in the back, while three other passengers had already exited the vehicle.

The SCDF pronounced the pair in front dead at the scene, and sent the other four people to Changi General Hospital.

Among the survivors were a 24-year-old woman with a hip fracture, a 26-year-old woman with multiple injuries, a 25-year-old man with chest injuries, and a 29-year-old woman with abrasions on her face and hands.

Mr Ho, a keen angler, was associate publisher of quarterly fishermen’s magazine Hooked, which is published by m(int).

According to the company’s website, his expertise was in interactive media, mobile broadcasts and events marketing of cyber-gaming competitions.

It is unclear how the accident occurred, but the car is believed to have skidded because it rained yesterday morning, reported Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao.

Here is the video of the car crash:

Crystal Jade chief on ‘marrying off’ company

Crystal Jade chief on ‘marrying off’ company

He cried when telling staff about the sale to LVMH’s private equity arm
Published on May 3, 2014 1:16 AM

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Crystal Jade Culinary Concepts chief executive Ip Yiu Tung with L Capital Asia managing director Christina Teo. The 65-year-old Mr Ip, who has one daughter, says it is very difficult to find a successor. L Capital Asia will be acquiring over 90 per cent of the restaurant group.

By Rebecca Lynne Tan
Food Correspondent

CRYSTAL Jade Culinary Concepts’ head honcho Ip Yiu Tung treats the well-known Chinese restaurant group he built like one of his children.

And just talking about its impending sale next week to L Capital Asia, French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s private equity arm, makes him emotional.

“I am handing over the company to another father,” he said with a quiver in his voice when asked about the sale, in an exclusive interview with The Straits Times at Crystal Jade Golden Palace at Paragon Shopping Centre yesterday.

L Capital Asia will be acquiring over 90 per cent of the restaurant group, which has an annual revenue of close of $250 million. The deal took about three years to materialise.

“I feel sad,” he added. “I actually cried when I announced it to my people on Tuesday.”

The chief executive, 65, who is also the group chairman and managing director, had to stop to compose himself after the first sentence in an announcement of the sale to 100 key staff members. The usually collected, reserved and matter-of-fact chief then cried, but left the private room at Crystal Jade Golden Palace before he could see their reactions.

On the decision to “marry off” the company, he said: “It is very difficult to find a successor. At the age of 65, even if I keep the business, I can keep it only for another three to five years, that’s all. After the age of 70, will I still have the strength? Already, it is quite tough.”

The Hong Konger, who is now a Singapore permanent resident, usually spends his weekends in Hong Kong, where he lives with his wife and only daughter, then begins travelling on Mondays to the group’s restaurants and offices in other parts of Asia.

The group comprises 120 restaurants, from high-end, fine-dining concepts to ones offering casual Chinese cuisine, in 10 countries from China to India, and 21 cities. It has 47 restaurants here.

Globally, it employs about 4,500 full-time staff.

Crystal Jade has seven shareholders. Some will retain a stake in the business while others will cash out.

Mr Ip has sold all his shares, he said.

The company started out as a single restaurant in the now-demolished Cairnhill Hotel in 1991. Mr Ip invested HK$10 million (about S$2 million at the time) the following year to keep the ailing restaurant afloat, then took on the role of overseeing the strategic direction for the company.

On why he thinks L Capital Asia is a good fit, he said: “Our strength is in providing good quality food and service, but we lack brand building, and good relationships with landlords around the world.”

The fund’s parent company, he said, is more in tune with the landscape of international business than Crystal Jade, and can “add value” to the group in terms of branding.

L Capital Asia’s managing director Christina Teo, 40, said: “Crystal Jade is a household brand with a very strong DNA.”

The fund has already identified a chief operating officer or chief executive for Crystal Jade, Mr Ip said. He will stay on as its interim chief executive for a year, then remain as an adviser and brand ambassador to the company.

The sale did not come about because the group is in debt, he said, adding that it is not leveraged or over-committed. It generates enough money to expand organically and has “a lot of cash, just sitting there”.

He plans to divide his new found time into three parts: one part for Crystal Jade, another for his family and the last part for helping the under-privileged in China.

He said: “I am not greedy. I don’t need more money to make me happy. I was already happy. I need a meaningful life, not just money.”

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself
out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out
of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and
forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her
enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and
thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open,
and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down
in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how
to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver

Paul Oakenfold – Toca Me (Benjani Remix)

Paul Oakenfold: “Toca Me was a massive record for me in the late 90’s – as I know it was for a lot of my peers at the time. It was one of those tracks that you could play in any situation and the place would go off. When the idea came up of doing the Trance Mission covers album this was one of the first titles I immediately knew I wanted to cover. There have been some great remixes of the original Fragma version over the years so I knew I had to make something different and so I went for a style and direction that many are currently referring to new school trance.”