Sing Lun Holdings was started by Lee Chee Hung, a Chinese immigrant in Singapore in 1951 as an importer, exporter and wholesaler of textiles. His son, Patrick Lee, moved the company upstream towards apparel manufacturing. The first apparel factory was set up in Singapore in 1969. Soon the company secured apparel manufacturing contracts from Europe and apparel manufacturing replaced textile trading business as the major revenue contributor. Leadership at the company moved into the third generation, after its current CEO, Mark Lee Kean Phi took over from his father, Patrick Lee, in 2009.
Today the clientele of this Singaporean apparel manufacturer Sing Lun Holdings includes some iconic brands such as Under Armour, Puma and Oakley. In the recently concluded Rio Olympics, athletes from Michael Phelps to Usain Bolt appeared in slick athletic gear manufactured by this family business. Once a family business that specialized in textile trading, Sing Lun now operates 13 manufacturing and sourcing facilities across Asia, generating annual revenue of $185 million.
In an effort to continue its growth trajectory in the third generation, Sing Lun recently began working with a company in Manchester to create a t-shirt that incorporates washable sensors that measure heart rate and muscle fatigue in its design. This technology can be applied beyond its traditional use in athletics to being used to monitor the health of the elderly or to tracking working conditions of high-risk jobs on oil rigs.
Source: cnbc.com Sept 9, 2016
