Grabbing opportunities to grow

AXIS REIT Managers Bhd’s newly appointed CEO, Leong Kit May, enters the meeting room at the company headquarters in Menara Axis, Petaling Jaya, with a bright smile. The media-savvy CEO is quick to settle herself in for the photo shoot and interview with City & Country, answering questions confidently and clearly.

As a child, she says, her ambition was to be an accountant. But over time, she has found that attitude can take one further than one expects. She comes from a family of four children; her mother was a full-time housewife and her father a contractor. Her generation, she says, was encouraged to pursue a career in medicine, law, accountancy or engineering.

“So, I thought being an accountant would be a good choice. However, over the years, the role has evolved. Twenty years ago, I never saw myself becoming a CEO.”

In January, at just 40 years old, Leong was appointed CEO and finance director of Axis REIT Managers, the manager of Axis Real Estate Investment Trust, after Datuk George Stewart LaBrooy announced his retirement last year. Eight years before that, Leong had been appointed Axis REIT’s chief financial officer (CFO).

Axis REIT Managers has grown in staff strength and asset size. Its portfolio increased from five properties in 2005 to 38 currently, while its headcount has increased from 30, a decade ago to 70 today.

The 38 properties have a total value of more than RM2 billion with 92% occupancy. Its portfolio spans the retail, office, industrial and manufacturing sectors. Its office properties include Crystal Plaza and Menara Axis in Petaling Jaya and its retail properties include Tesco Bukit Indah in Johor and Giant Hypermarket in Kedah.

Leong is looking to grow the portfolio to RM3 billion, but she has not set a timeframe to do so.

“We want to provide better returns for unit holders but we won’t grow for the sake of growth. We want to grow responsibly, by finding the right assets,” she says.

Carpe diem

Leong has proven that gender and age are no obstacles in climbing the corporate ladder. It is important, she says, to recognise opportunities and grab them.

“I believe in pushing the boundaries in the things we do to improve ourselves because the moment you don’t evolve, you will be obsolete. It is about sharpening your skill set and doing things better every time.”

The mother of two notes that it is important for women to embrace positivity. Having a good support infrastructure for women is also important, and a lot of things need to be done for women to grow in the workforce, she says.

“Many people don’t want to move on because of fear and insecurity. You will never know the outcome if you never try, so you just have to grab the opportunity and do it,” says Leong. “A support system is important and I stay close to my family. They are always there to back me up. Also, Axis REIT Managers has a good culture with no age or gender bias when it comes to career development.

Leong joined accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) as an auditor after she graduated with a Bachelor of Business (Accountancy) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. She completed the Certified Practising Accountants (CPA) Australia programme during her three-year stint at EY — a period she sees as a good training ground that helped build her character.

This experience, she notes, helped her cultivate perseverance and discipline, as she had to complete her studies despite long working hours. She says she learned everything from scratch and acknowledges that the process has added to her skill set and helped shape who she is today.

“In those days, we learned from ground zero, and that is important because management decisions need to take those on the ground into consideration. I always believe in being hands-on. So at Axis REIT Managers, even management gets its hands dirty doing things. Then you learn what it takes to do things better each time.”

In 2000, she joined UOA Group to gain experience in working in the corporate world. She spent six years as an accountant there, serving in different departments such as finance, food and beverage, construction and development.

Leong got involved in REITs when she helped with the listing of UOA REIT in 2005. The following year, the then Axis REIT Managers CFO Lim Yoon Peng invited her to join Axis REIT and her journey with the company began.

“I was 30 years old and I was thinking of joining Axis REIT Managers to try something different to increase my exposure, and this year is my 10th here. I came in as a finance manager reporting to Lim, and the company gave me a lot of opportunities to grow within the organisation,” Leong reminisces.

She was made CFO two years later, at the age of 32, when Lim became CEO of AmFIRST REIT.

This promotion gave her the opportunity to sharpen her leadership skills while working alongside then CEO LaBrooy. Together, they worked to formalise strategies to grow Axis REIT Managers into what it is today — a process she describes as “a good experience”.

“Together, we have achieved many firsts in the industry, such as being the first to convert into an Islamic REIT, the first to introduce an income distribution reinvestment plan and the first to implement unit splits,” she says.

When LaBrooy announced his retirement last year, the succession plan was already in place. Leong had been appointed acting chief operating officer in 2014, before the actual transition 1½ years later.

“Being a CEO is different from being a CFO. As a CEO, you have to walk through the properties. For industrial properties, for example, you have to wear a hard hat and safety shoes to walk through the site,” she says. “Now, I am always on site because I have to know what’s going on on the ground and meet people. I meet more people now — the tenants, for example. There are more relationships to be developed and built.”

Company philosophy

Leong emphasises talent management, transparency and thinking out of the box. She says Axis REIT Managers believes in talent management and growing its people.

“That’s how I have moved on in my career here. I’m very fortunate to have had many mentors in my life, such as Lim and Stewart [LaBrooy], because they have given me a lot of guidance,” she says. “A lot of credit has to be given to the senior management and the board of the company because they embrace diversity and give opportunities to everyone, regardless of age and gender. As long as we deliver results and perform well, there is no discrimination. This is very important. Of course, you have to grab the opportunities that arise and deliver to prove that you can do it.”

She adds that Axis REIT Managers prefers internal promotion, so it tries to develop its employees’ skill sets by providing training. It encourages its staff to take a professional paper called the Certificate of Real Estate Investment Finance by giving them study leave.

Every year, the company has a brainstorming session with the senior managers, when they go on a weekend trip and look into the company’s five-year strategy. This allows managers to understand the direction of the company and work on it, Leong says. She calls the team “The A Team”, which is The Axis Team.

Axis REIT Managers also sees the importance of connecting with its stakeholders, hence, it practises an open-door policy. For example, the mobile phone numbers of the management team are printed on their name-cards so that stakeholders, such as investors, fund managers, unit holders and the media, can reach them directly.

“We are very transparent in our communication with stakeholders, and people know what we are doing. We make ourselves available. Some tenants have been with us since before the listing and we have grown alongside them. In this era, everything is accessible, be it via email or phone. Technology is changing the landscape. It also allows us to make decisions in real time,” Leong says.

 

Future plans

As Leong often emphasises during the interview with City & Country, one should recognise opportunities and grab them. Just as she seized the work opportunities that came her way, she sees opportunities in acquiring industrial properties in the current lacklustre market, as e-commerce is growing while the retail sector is not performing well.

Moving forward this year, Axis REIT Managers’ focus is to increase its asset size in industrial properties. It concluded a deal at end-January to purchase four single-storey detached factories, annexed with a two-storey office building, in Kulai, Johor.

The industrial building is currently leased to Beyonics Technology (Senai) Sdn Bhd, which manufactures plastic precision components and moulds, and provides electronic manufacturing services.

Another two deals will be completed by the middle of the year.

“We will continue to grow this year and we will be busy as we see opportunities, especially as industrial properties and retail are quite bad now. A soft market creates a lot of opportunities for us to look into deals,” Leong says. “There is also a shift in mindset among business owners as they begin to realise that they don’t have to buy property and lock their capital away. Business owners are moving towards being asset-light and there are opportunities for us to buy industrial properties.”

The growth of e-commerce activities in the country, she notes, also represents an opportunity for the warehousing and logistics sector as overseas companies are expanding in Malaysia to take advantage of the weak ringgit.

Axis REIT Managers is also in a collaboration with Axis Group for a 1.2 million sq ft warehouse facility in Sijangkang, Kuala Langat, to cater for the warehousing and logistics demand, which is close to Port Klang. Accessible via many highways, the 50-acre site is just 2km from the proposed Johan Setia LRT station.

“We bought this piece of land five years ago and it is currently an open-air car park,” she says. “There will be two blocks and we are currently talking to some potential tenants, mainly third-party logistics providers that provide services to their customers. We are in the process of getting the approvals now and we are looking at building it in 15 months.”

Leong’s career journey has not been without its challenges, but she says it is important to turn the challenges into opportunities. “It is important to embrace the opportunities and deliver. You have to believe in yourself.”

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This article first appeared in City & Country, a pullout of The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on March 14, 2016. Subscribe here for your personal copy.