Yeap Chor Ee

Yeap Chor Ee was a businessman and philanthropist. He was born in the village of Nan An, Fujian, China, in 1867. Armed only with indefatigable energy and strong business acumen, he came to Penang at a mere age of 17 and grew to become Penang's richest man of his time and one of the State's greatest philanthropists. Yeap died in 1952 at the age of 85. By then, he was known as The Grand Old Man of Penang, well-loved for his old world courtesy, humility, generosity and integrity.

According to a report, he arrived in Penang, off a boat from Nan An, Fujian, China at the mere age of 17, with “little money and big dreams.” He started his life in George Town, then a bustling port city, as a barber’s assistant. He was supposedly quite deft with his hands and plaiting the pony tails or towchang of the Chinese immigrants was a specialty.

After five years, the entrepreneur in him saw Yeap working his way up to start his own provisions shop – which he named Ban Hin Lee or a “ten thousand flourishing profits” – at the age of 24. His business grew from sugar trading to other commodities including rubber, rice, tin, tapioca and coconut oil. According to one report, it was his association with Java’s sugar king, Oei Tiong Ham, that led him to eventually control a significant share of Malaya’s sugar market. As a natural fit to his trading business, Yeap set up a financing arm in 1918.

By 1935, the business had grown so big that he incorporated the Ban Hin Lee Bank – the state’s first home grown bank, with its headquarters at Beach Street, the financial district of Penang. Until today, he remains the only individual in peninsular Malaysia and Singapore to single-handedly fund the setting up of a bank. With the fortune he made, he turned to philanthropy with particular interest in education.