TL;DR – Razer chief Tan Min-Liang is now a billionaire.
If you are a gamer, chances are, you might have used Razer products. Even if you aren’t a gamer, if you are a Singaporean, chances are, you might have heard of Razer. Not least because of the Twitter exchange between Tan Min-Liang, Razer’s CEO, and PM Lee.
And if you are a savvy investor, you definitely would have heard of Razer. Because Razer just got listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Successful IPO of Razer for further growth
If you managed to get shares of Razer in its IPO, you could have made a killing. The IPO price was HK$3.88 per share. At one point, it rose to HK$5.49. That is a gain of 41.5%. Given that the IPO gathered demand that was 291.24 times the number of 106.36 million shares on offer, it’s no wonder that the share price surged so much.
With the IPO, Razer now has a market value of about SGD7.7billion. Through the IPO, Razer raised SGD680 million. It plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to develop new verticals in the gaming and digital entertainment industry, including mobile devices, audio visual technology and live-streaming, as well as to fund acquisitions as it expands its ecosystem.
Shows that Singaporeans can be creative and entrepreneurial
As Singaporeans, we can’t help but feel proud that a company started and led by a Singaporean is making waves internationally. Min-Liang is a true blue Singaporean. He was born and grew up in Singapore. He studied in Singaporean schools, graduating as a lawyer from NUS.
From what we understand, Min-Liang was a fairly successful lawyer. But he’s a passionate gamer. He was dissatisfied with the mouse he was using. He believed that he could design a better mouse for gamers. That’s why he decided to set out to design a gaming mouse.
In 1999, Min-Liang and Robert Krakoff met and worked together to design the world’s first gaming mouse – the “Razer Boomslang”. In 2005, Min-Liang and Krakoff officially incorporated Razer Inc. in San Diego, California, with Min-Liang taking the role of CEO and Creative Director. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Min-Liang’s story shows us that your degree isn’t your destiny. You truly achieve success when you pursue your passion. His success also shows that, contrary to what some opposition politicians claim, Singapore’s system is able to produce creative entrepreneurs.
For the good of Singapore
We hope that Min-Liang and Razer will grow from strength to strength. If Razer does well, all Singaporeans will benefit, even if not all of us bought its shares. That’s because GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is one of Razer’s key backers. So if Razer grows, that means that GIC’s return on investment in Razer will grow.
And whatever GIC earns through its investments eventually finds its way back into the Singapore’s coffers to fund the expenditure of Singapore’s government. So who says that GIC is a terrible investor? It is still able to pick winners.
All in all, we are mighty proud of Min-Liang and Razer. Steady lah!