From the moment I am introduced to him in a modest meeting room in YTL’s Bristol HQ in Patchway, it is apparent that Dato Hong Yeoh is no ordinary businessman.
The man who controls the arm of the Malaysian company which wants to build an arena for Bristol in Filton, has agreed to this one interview in the week that the planning application for the venue is submitted to Bristol City Council.
And I’m hoping he can throw some light on what has inspired YTL’s resolve to build it.
He is memorably characterful - frank, forthright, insightful and considered. He is also unafraid to express principles which are rarely voiced around boardroom tables. Principles which make him as much concerned about the character of the people with whom he does business as their ability.
He is one of seven children of YTL founder Tan Sri Dato' Seri Yeoh Tiong Lay, who built the company from a humble construction firm in 1955 to an international concern with interests in power, water, rail, cement, construction, communication, property development and hotels.
And, as if to emphasise the extraordinary family foundations which uniquely underpin this now global corporation, Dato Hong has brought two of his own seven children to our meeting.
“Go forth and multiply, says the Bible,” he beams as he waves me warmly to a chair. In total, the family boasts 27 grandchildren.
“We have to grow the business or there’s no room for them,” Dato Hong jokes.
It won’t be the last time he mentions the importance of his Christian beliefs or his family. In any other business context, the religious references might unsettle. But there is a genuine sincerity to Dato Hong which would disarm any cynic.
I ask him how his company’s faith and family shape YTL’s business decision-making.
“Our ethos is very simple,” he says: “We are a Christian family and the concept is about stewardship. Because the family are all Christians, we have a unity of purpose from one generation to another. We take a long-term view of life and the communities we create.
“This makes it easier for us in a business world which has no sense of ownership. When you go to UK listed companies and tell them you are family-run, all these red lights come on, with concerns over governance and independence. But what you find is that companies over time lose it because they have no skin in the game, no long-term vision.
“Look at General Electric, the biggest US company, overnight gone. Yet they allegedly had the best leadership skills. Everybody goes to GE to learn about leadership. And yet they cannot produce leaders for themselves.”
“You can be articulate and carry yourself well but what is your character? What are you? What is your sense of stewardship? What is your sense of responsibility? What is your role or purpose in life?”
This philosophy puts me in mind of the philanthropic capitalism propagated by Victorian industrialists like the Fry family in Bristol, whose legacy includes some of our city’s parks and public buildings.
And it goes some way to explain why a Malaysian family is prepared to spend an estimated £100 million of its own money building an arena for Bristol.
Colin Skellett, who is also at the meeting, was running Wessex Water when YTL acquired it in 2002. He is now group chief executive of Wessex Water and chair of YTL Land and Property UK and he agrees with the comparison: “It’s a good analogy. When I met the family, one of the first questions I asked was ‘what’s the decision-making process?’ The answer was ‘Sunday lunch’. It’s really simple. It’s the family’s money they’re investing, not somebody else’s, underpinned by a sense of long-term responsibility.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am left in no doubt that YTL intends to make money from its investment. But that is clearly not the only incentive which drives the project, emphasised by the fact that the company has never sold anything it has acquired.
But why build an arena at all? YTL bought the former Filton airfield and has a plan to build 2,675 new homes there, essentially creating a new suburb of Bristol. The company didn’t need to include the Brabazon hangars in its plans, nor did it need to build an arena. So why bother?
“We have a tradition in our company that for every investment we do, we will host a concert of celebration,” explains Dato Hong: “That’s what we do in Malaysia, we host open concerts every year. In the case of Wessex, we did it with the Three Tenors concert in Bath. So we have this tradition of celebration. That’s why an arena has always been part of our thinking with Filton. The hangar was such a great space and an arena was lacking in this area.
“Looking at the connectivity, the 12-minute connection to Temple Meads, this could be a twin area with the city centre. And then there’s the link to London, which is just over an hour away. And the fact that it’s already a brownfield site, so we’re not starting from scratch. We think this can become a community space which everyone can enjoy.”
All of which would make perfect sense in just about every other city when faced with a company prepared to spend millions of its own money on an entertainment venue.
But this is Bristol. And YTL’s potential problem is that not everyone in the city agrees with Dato Hong’s analysis. There are enough people who still believe that Bristol’s arena should be at Temple Meads to make the planning application a challenging process - with any political differences of opinion likely to be amplified by the mayoral election in May.
I ask him about YTL’s determination to see it through: “Coming back to the Three Tenors, the first thing we wanted to do was to make it a free concert to thousands of people. And the advice was not to do that because, in England, if you give people anything free they are very cynical. But why can’t one be natural? Society is community.
“This is a long-term project. It is not a stand-alone project. It makes commercial sense together with our total development. The key part of this is that the arena is here and that is the key piece we hope to resolve. The character of the surrounding development will be based on it.
“The houses we are building are being designed by our architects based on the concept that you need to build community. Each plot of development will have its own green and common spaces with a design to ensure that the community can co-exist.
“We assume, we hope, that the arena will be here. We think it makes commercial sense for us and we are going for it. Whatever happens, we will persevere with this development.”
Colin Skellett adds: “If you look at the Massive Attack concert, where was the hotel benefit? In Bristol. People will stay in Bristol.”
Dato Hong is also unequivocal about the political criticism Bristol mayor Marvin Rees has received for meeting YTL in Malaysia at the company’s expense: “To be fair to Marvin, if you were him and you had the ambition to build an arena and you didn’t want to subsidise it and someone wants to build an arena in his own place with his own proper money, you’d be biting his hands off!
“The only question is whether he’s real or not. The fact that he’s coming to Malaysia to check that out I think means that he’s doing the due diligence he should do. For himself and for the Bristol community.”
It strikes me that the nuance to YTL’s business ethics has been largely lost in the political noise around the arena’s often-difficult journey from Temple Meads to Filton. But the company’s long-term commitment to its investments should surely count for something in counter-culture Bristol which has a tendency to be over-suspicious of big business.
Dato Hong certainly thinks so: “Look at our track record on our Wessex investment for 17 years. We just had a meeting with the water regulator and he finds that we are quite unique.
“In the UK, you are looking at the number one level of governance. For us, it’s a gold standard. If you can survive and do business in England then you can do it anywhere in the First World.
“Our UK asset value at the time we bought Wessex was £1.2 billion. Now it’s £3.3 billion. We’ve gone through our third generation of investment.
"So our investment over the years in these assets is proven.
“Bristol should draw comfort from the fact that it is dealing with a long-term player.”
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