The triple whammy of Covid-19, a partner’s collapse, and family troubles would prove to be nearly too much for CDL chairman Kwek Leng Beng, whose unflappable confidence became a trademark of his renowned Normanton Park in the corporate world.

When Sherman Kwek, his son, attempted to expand the CDL developer of the Normanton Park Site Plan, it was the beginning of the end for him. He was surprised at how slowly things were moving to the Normanton Park Showflat. The organization was expanding at an average of a project a year. He said, “We were late to enter the China market, and CDL China was only established in 2010.”

We were expanding extremely slowly, and it has always been my firm opinion that you can’t become a significant player or get economies of scale if you can’t scale in any given market sector or geographic region. Without scale, even employing people is incredibly tough. In China, CDL was mostly unknown.

By investing in Sincere Property Group, one of China’s top 100 real estate firms, he was able to propel CDL China into the top tier of developers in 2018.

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