How it started -WCT

by **Cals** Mon 10 Aug 2015, 01:22

How it started

Saturday, 8 August 2015

IN 1981, two friends and two brothers teamed up to form a company doing earthworks. They could only afford a used Caterpillar (CAT) 950 wheel loader that cost RM175,000, a princely sum in those days.
They combined the letters of their surnames to form WCT Earthworks and Building Contractors Sdn Bhd, W to stand for the Wong brothers Chew Lai and Sewe Wing, C for Chan Soon Huat and T for Peter Taing Kim Hwa.
Taing was made chief executive because he had the highest education, having graduated with an economics degree from Sunderland Polytechnic, now University of Sunderland, in the United Kingdom. Chan was a mason.
From the start, Chan and Chew Lai were not directly involved in the day-to-day running of the outfit, but acted as advisers. The company had two other workers.
Although there was much exhilaration in the beginning, they had their moments of despair during the 1985-86 recession when salaries and payments to suppliers had to be deferred by three to seven months. But they persevered. They moved away from tin-mining jobs to go into construction and took on earthworks jobs from private property developers.
It was their turning point, and from there they moved on to civil engineering and infrastructural works.
In 1992, they landed the Selangor Turf Club project, which became the main horse racing course in the country.
For many years, they remained as subcontractors by choice because they were able to land more jobs as a subcontractor than as a main contractor.
Over the years, they have picked up quite a number of awards. The development of the F1 Sepang circuit was another feather in their cap. WCT completed it within 14 months. That helped it pulled through the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.
After the Asian financial crisis, they went into property development. The success of the Sepang F1 circuit also paved the way for them to pick up other F1 jobs, the Bahrain International Circuit, the first ever F1 racing circuit located in the desert, covering 170 ha which it completed in 2004, and the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, completed in 2009.
Looking back, Taing says: “We went through all the economic and financial crises, and we became resilient. We weathered the storms because we did not leverage too much. We did all sorts of infrastructure jobs. We were general contractors. We did not intentionally bid for awards. We want to make sure the projects go well and are completed on time.”
Taing adds: “Anything you can draw, we can build.” – By Thean Lee Cheng