A CARING YEAR: Dato Henry Lau unveiling KTS’ 50th anniversary official logo for the year-long anniversary celebration at Crown Towers yesterday.
KUCHING: Marking its 50th anniversary this year with the tagline ‘We Care and We Grow’, the KTS Group is set to experience advancement for another five decades.
Incorporated in 1962 under the name KTS and Company Limited, KTS Group – with a workforce of about 20,000 – has now eight business divisions and continues to explore possibilities and diversify its businesses.
“The future of KTS Group will be increasingly challenging amidst globalisation but nonetheless the future looks promising.
FOR PROSPERITY: Dato Henry Lau (second left) with Swee Nguong (third left), Vincent Lau (fourth right) and others tossing ‘yee sang’ in conjunction with the forthcoming Lunar New Year. — Photos by Kong Jun Liung
THANK YOU: Dato Henry Lau (right) shakes hands with guests after the dinner.
WE GROW AND CARE: Over 150 invited guests and senior staff attended the KTS Group 50th anniversary launch dinner.
“KTS Group will continue to expand in palm oil business, timber tree plantations, property development, food and hospitality business as well as general trading and construction,” said KTS Group managing director Dato Henry Lau when unveiling the official logo for the yearlong anniversary celebration at the Crown Towers here Thursday evening.
Lau said the organising committee had lined up several programmes, which would take place each month all year around.
“In celebrating 50 years of establishment, a show of our care by way of appreciation will be reflected in the various programmes that has been planned for throughout 2012.”
Some of the programmes in store include measures to discover and enhance talent in various fields among the youth, extending financial support to education and helping fulfill dreams of other worthy causes.
KTS Group will also organise public forums to discuss issues of interests among the local communities.
At the launch, Lau announced the setting up of the KTS Manager’s Club following the rise in the number of managerial staff in the group. To date, KTS Group has 378 personnel performing managerial tasks.
He believes that the increase in managerial staff is a sign of maturity in the group’s workforce.
Thus, the new club was imperative to strengthen the ties and cohesiveness of the managerial workforce.
“The club is intended to improve networking and communication among managers of similar as well as of different levels of seniority to provide an avenue for the group to disseminate information within the organisation.
This would in turn instill greater awareness on inter-company products, workforce requirements and various services.
Lau pointed out that the club would enable the group to place emphasis on developing managerial strength including providing incentives to determined and dedicated staff who sought career advancement.
On oil palm plantation, he said the group took a bold step to explore and persist in the agriculture business since 1991.
“Today, after almost 20 years since the day of deciding to diversify, KTS Group has indeed come a long way.”
It has established its own Crude Palm Oil Mills and a RBD (refined, bleached and deodorised) Refinery of 400,000 metric tonnes processing capacity per year and is expanding it to 720,000 metric tonnes per year this year.
To sustain timber resources, he said KTS Group had heavily invested in tree plantation projects both in Sarawak and Sabah since the 1990s.
“These planted forests will be yielding and providing timber supplies to our mills as well as local and international markets in the near future.”
Notably, the media business was added to the group in 2000 when KTS took control of See Hua Group newspaper publishing, printing and paper-making businesses.
In response to the market competition and challenges, the Oriental Daily began publication in Peninsular Malaysia in 2002.
“At celebrating the 60 year and 10 year anniversary for See Hua Daily News Berhad and Oriental Daily News respectively, we have established ourselves as a credible media group in Malaysia, publishing not only Chinese newspapers in West and East Malaysia but also in English and Bahasa Malaysia in Sabah and Sarawak.”
Touching on the history of KTS Group, Lau said there were three shareholders and the first board of directors consisted of 17 members during its incorporation on Jan 2, 1962.
Even before KTS was incorporated and registered 50 years ago, he said the corporation had already started business exporting ramin logs and sawn timber in 1956 at its first office in Sibu.
“It was a shared office rented from See Hua Daily News that occupied a three-storey shoplot.
“There were only three staff namely the late Dato Sri Dr Lau Hui Kang as the manager, the late Tiong Hua Sing as the treasurer and Ngu Ngiong Hieng as the clerk.”
To this day, Ngu still works for KTS as the senior general manager cum chief operating officer of Sabah among other senior positions and directorships he is holding.
Lau said the achievements of KTS Group were not without hardship and turbulence despite the substantial growth in the past.
In several attempts to breed business diversification, he said the group had to endure the economic downturns in 1972-73, 1985, 1997-98 and 2008-09. He was pleased that these hardships and turbulences had enabled the group to gain experiences and grab opportunities to move upward rather than being defeated.
“We care so we can grow and we grow so we can care about others. We pray that KTS Group will have another 50 years of care and growth.”
Among those present were KTS Group chairman Lau Swee Nguong, KTS Group deputy managing directors Temenggong Vincent Lau and Stephen Lau, Dato Henry Lau’s wife Datin Wendy Lau and Archbishop John Ha.