Peter Lim

The son of a fishmonger[6], Lim and his six siblings grew up in a two-bedroom government flat in the Bukit Ho Swee public housing estate. Lim learnt a lot growing up in this neighbourhood, which was notorious for its lawlessness then. Lim completed his secondary school education at the Raffles Institution. After National Service, he went to Perth to study at the University of Western Australia. To fund his university education, Lim worked part-time doing odd jobs as a taxi driver, cook and waiter. It was one of these jobs – in the Australian fast-food chain Red Rooster – that opened his eyes to how business was done. Lim studied how they started, how they grew, and how they scaled up. In university, he further honed his instincts and skills as an investor. He graduated with a degree in accounting and finance and first worked as an accountant. He did some tax consultancy before going into stocks.

In the early 1990s, Lim invested about US$10 million in a start-up palm-oil company, Wilmar. By the second half of the decade, he had written off that investment. Then, the Indonesian currency fell from 2,500 rupiah against the US dollar (the exchange rate when he invested in Wilmar) to 16,000 rupiah. Due to the riots and instability in Indonesia at that time, there was no way of cashing out the assets. Stability was gradually restored in a few years. Businessman Robert Kuok decided to inject his Malaysian palm oil operations into Wilmar in 2007. In response to a 2006 FDA ruling mandating the labelling of trans fatty acids on the Nutrition Facts label, food manufacturers began eliminating trans fats from their products and began substituting them with palm oil. Imports to the United States alone increased by nearly 60%. The increased use of biofuels, during the period of high oil prices also contributed to demand.[7] In 2010, Lim cashed out at the peak of commodity prices and sold his Wilmar shares for US$1.5 billion.

Known as the “Remisier King” due to his success in stocks, Lim explains that while there was an element of luck, it was also because he created a role for himself as a “one man merchant bank” in the M&A space in Indonesia in the late 80s. He became indispensable to both retail and high net worth investors.

Lim quit the brokerage business in 1996 and became a private investor. He was able to escape the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis as he had liquidated most of his stocks and was holding cash.

In June 2010 the Singapore Olympic Foundation (SOF) set up the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship with a S$10 million donation from Lim. The gift is the single largest donation in Singapore from an individual towards sports development.[8] The recipients are typically students who come from financially challenged backgrounds and have demonstrated a potential to excel in their respective sports.[9] In 2019, Lim further pledged to continue supporting young local athletes for another 10 years from 2021 to 2030 by donating another S$10 million to the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship.[10] Since the inception of the scholarship, 2642 student-athletes have received scholarships amounting to $7.2 million.[10]

Lim further committed a separate $20 million to start a new community project focused on helping children from less privileged backgrounds, with the aim of helping them reach their potential.[10]

In 2014, Lim also endowed Nanyang Technological University with S$3 million to fund a professorship in peace studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies to protect and promote harmony in Singapore.[11]

• Bio at Forbes magazine
• Write up at Wall Street Journal
• Singapore Olympic Foundation-Peter Lim Scholarship