He plans to build museum for massive collection, which includes 40,000 artefacts recently bought from another collector
THIS 3M-HIGH STATUE OF KUAN YIN, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, is among Mr Oei Hong Leong's 10,000-strong collection of Buddhist artefacts currently housed in a warehouse. The investor recently acquired another 40,000 items and hired a curator. -- ST PHOTO: LIM WUI LIANG
TYCOON Oei Hong Leong has long been said to have the Midas touch in the business world.
Now, the 60-year-old, who has dealt in everything from steel to palm oil to property, has used his deft mergers and acquisitions (M&A) skills in the art world.
He has just bought a museum's worth of 40,000 Buddhist artefacts to add to his 10,000-strong collection.
In M&A terms, some investors would say he has the market pretty well sewn up.
Mr Oei acquired the latest pieces from a passionate collector, lawyer Woon Wee Teng, who was struggling to maintain the collection in a four-storey pre-war house in Cantonment Road called Nei Xue Tang (The Hall of Inner Learning).
Now Mr Oei plans to build a Buddhist art museum to house his beloved Buddha statues.
He said: 'It will be purely for charity purposes. At a certain age, you want to do something different, something more meaningful in life. This will be a museum where people from Asia and the rest of the world will come to seek Buddhist scholarship.'
He is not a Buddhist and regards Buddhism as a 'philosophy and a way of life''.
The museum is likely to be in the city area and could cost tens of millions if land has to be acquired. Mr Oei also reckons he will have to fork out a few million dollars a year for its upkeep.
The more than $10 million that he made from the recent sale of an industrial building in Pasir Panjang will go some way towards developing the new museum.
Mr Oei had intended to turn that building into a museum but the authorities rejected his plans, saying the building has to be kept for industrial purposes.
The two men declined to say how much Mr Oei paid for Mr Woon's collection but the acquisition included the Cantonment Road house.
Mr Woon, 50, who has been passionate about Buddhist artefacts since he was seven, said his collection includes a 1m-long sleeping Buddha and a 16th century Buddhist monastic robe presented to him by a revered 114-year-old abbot from Sichuan who visited Singapore recently.
Plans for the new museum include a meditation hall, a library housing out-of-print Buddhist art books, a vegetarian kitchen, a lecture hall, a residence for visiting scholars and a souvenir shop.
A curator from China has been hired and Mr Woon is winding down his practice to be adviser.
Mr Oei has been collecting Buddha statues for 10 years. They are mainly from China and made of jade or stone.
The 10,000 pieces are kept in a nondescript 7,000 sq ft warehouse, with unopened boxes as well as boxes of jade statues piled higher than a man's height. Shelves go up to the ceiling and are filled with Buddhist artefacts.
One impressive piece is a 3m-high Chinese gilt bronze 'thousand hand' Kuan Yin or Goddess of Mercy statue.
Mr Oei has run businesses in Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong. He returned to Singapore from Hong Kong in 2000 and has made a name for himself as a shrewd investor.
'Now I'm back in Singapore, I need to find a new job and delete my name from the unemployment list,' Mr Oei joked.
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