Simon Murray finds in Hong Kong everything an international business would need

With a career spanning over 35 years Simon Murray, founder and chairman of Simon Murray & Associates, a partner of Gleacher & Co and best-selling author, has been at the forefront of a golden age in Asian business. Starting at Jardine Matheson in 1966, he went on to form his own companies, spent 10 years as group managing director of Hutchison Whampoa, and was executive chairman Asia-Pacific of the Deutsche Bank Group. He also set up General Enterprise Management Services Limited (GEMS), a Hong Kong-based private equity investment arm, which manages and advises funds on direct investments in the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr Murray's book Legionnaire, which documents the five years he spent in the parachute regiment of the French Foreign Legion, is an international best seller and provided inspiration for the movie Simon, An English Legionnaire. He is also a keen runner - 10-km jogs are routine - and has a resting heart rate of 47 beats a minute, on a par with a professional athlete's.

"Hong Kong is the centre of gravity for GEMS' entire operation. In its portfolio is a Chinese mainland forestry company where we have planted more than 420 million trees, a Thai luxury resort, a Korean credit card company and a Hong Kong electronic chip-packaging company. The name comes from wanting to find gems in the rubble of the Asian crisis of 1998-99.

We are different from other private equity funds, in that we do take minority stakes. We're not financial investors, we're more than that. We won't invest in a company unless one of the partners has first hand experience in that business. For this reason we see very good deal flow. We look at companies that have a track record, make profit and have a decent balance sheet. But we must know about their business.

GEMS is firmly based in Hong Kong because, quite simply, everything that we need is here to meet our requirements and those of our partners. Hong Kong really is a great place for doing business. There are still pots of gold to be found in Hong Kong. We are going through a tough period, but we have been through tough periods before and emerged the stronger because of it. While the aftermath of SARS has discolored our image, and the community and business has suffered badly because of it, there are reasons to be positive ─ Hong Kong will bounce back.

Unique combination of advantages

The internal and external challenges that impact our businesses are nothing new. We should rely on our resilience and stoicism, which in the past have served us very well. We need to focus on our strengths, which include the best banking and financial services in Asia and on par with the best in the world. The depth and breadth of Hong Kong's banking and financial systems is a long way ahead of anywhere else in Asia.

We also have the best port in China and top-of-the-range incentives for operating and creating business. These include a superb airport, hotels and restaurants, communications, legal protection, straightforward tax regulations and very little bureaucracy or government interference. This unique combination of facilities and services provides us with a strong advantage.

There's a lot of growth in the mainland, particularly after its WTO entry, and that offers great potential in which Hong Kong is ideally placed to play a part. The Hong Kong Dream, which states that anyone with a generous dose of ambition, guts and talent, and the will to create his own luck, can make it to the top is still alive and well. Hong Kong is also a lively but safe and secure place to live.

I am sure that the same sense of excitement and exhilaration that I feel every time I arrive in Hong Kong has always been here and was felt by the seafarers who sailed into Victoria Harbour in the 19th century. The feeling of 'get-up-and-go' is one of the reasons we decided to set up Gleacher and Co's offices in Hong Kong to expand our venture capital and private equity business. 

Away from doing business there is also lots to enjoy. I love the diversity of food available, the company of many different friends from all sorts of backgrounds and nationalities and the wonderful experience of sailing on a junk to one of the outlying islands to dine on seafood."

Related link:
GEMS www.gems.com.hk