The movers and shakers of the business

Behind the humble neighbourhood coffee shop are multimillion-dollar business empires and larger-than-life figures with fascinating stories.

One of the largest coffee shop chains in Singapore - with more than 30 locations - is a third-generation family business.

Kim San Leng started as Kim San Eating House in Hougang, set up by Mr Hoon Moh Heng in 1950.

His son, a then 17-year-old Hoon Thing Leong, started working at another coffee shop his father had opened in Jalan Besar scrubbing toilets, cleaning spittoons and being a general dogsbody.

After seven years as a coffee boy, he borrowed money from his father to set up his own coffee shop in Bukit Timah.

In 1990, after taking over his father's business, he bought a coffee shop in Bishan for $3.52 million, $2 million more than the starting bid.

But his forays into magazine publishing and noodle-making in the mid-1990s failed.

Mr Hoon Thing Leong, who died in April last year at the age of 72, was not just a coffee shop king but also a published writer. His book featuring 80 of his weekly columns published in Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao was released in June 2014, and 10,000 copies were sold within five days.

What started as a humble economy rice stall in a Toa Payoh coffee shop has grown into what is today a food and beverage empire.

Part of the Chang Cheng Group is Chang Cheng Mee Wah, a chain of 27 coffee shops. Other brands in the group include Ming Kitchen, a seafood restaurant chain, and Rong Kee roasted delights, a chain of hawker stalls that sell roasted meat.

The man behind the brand is Mr Ricky Kok, 53, Chang Cheng Group's founder and managing director, who borrowed $12,000 to open his first stall in 1994 after 10 years of working in Singapore.

Born into a family of seven children, the Seremban, Malaysia, native came to Singapore to work as a cook when he was 15. In 2000, Mr Kok's younger brother, Paul, joined him in Singapore, before renting his first coffee shop in Tampines with his older brother's help 10 years later.

The younger Mr Kok made a splash in 2015 when EH 155 - a company where he is one of two directors - bought a coffee shop in Bukit Batok for $31 million. The sale price was a record at the time. News reports at that time said he was already running more than 20 coffee shops by then.

Founded in 1990, Kimly is one of the largest coffee shop operators here.

The group, which is listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), has a network of 67 coffee shops, seven industrial canteens and two foodcourts under the foodclique brand. It also runs food stalls, restaurants and confectionery shops.

Founder Lim Lee Liat started his first coffee shop venture with several friends when he was just 24 years old in 1990. Kimly grew rapidly and was listed on SGX's Catalist board in March 2017. The public tranche of the initial public offering was oversubscribed by more than 335 times.

Trouble started with a $16 million acquisition of drinks manufacturer Asian Story Corporation (ASC) in 2018, which quickly came under probe by the authorities. In February this year, Mr Lim - who was executive chairman - was fined $150,000, and former executive director Chia Cher Khiang was fined $100,000. They were also disqualified from acting as a director of any company for five years for failing to notify SGX that Mr Lim owned a 30 per cent stake in ASC, a conflict of interest.