THE way Mr Wong Fong Fui tells it, one may be forgiven for mistaking Boustead Singapore's founder as Chinese. That is, if his name wasn't such a dead giveaway.
The number eight plays a prominent role in the life and death of Mr Edward Boustead, said Mr Wong, the company's chief executive.
'His affinity to the number 'eight' is uncanny,' Mr Wong told The Straits Times.
The Chinese, particularly the Cantonese, regard eight as an auspicious number as it rhymes with wealth in that dialect.
Born in Yorkshire, England in 1800, Mr Boustead died at the age of 88 in 1888 in his homeland.
He had arrived in Singapore in 1828 and set up Boustead & Co. The company quickly took off to become one of Singapore's great trading houses, dealing in spices, flavours, seeds, nuts, herbs and oils.
Its interests subsequently extended to include rubber and palm oil plantations, trading and agencies for a whole host of services such as shipping and insurance.
'We were the sole agents for insurance giant Lloyds and big marine insurance companies in the world,' Mr Wong said.
'Hennessy, Procter & Gamble, Cadbury, most of the consumer goods that you see today, Boustead brought them in.'
This year, the company - now known as Boustead Singapore - celebrates its 180th anniversary, making it the second oldest in Singapore. Only property developer Guthrie GTS can claim to be older.
To mark the milestone, Boustead will hold a gala dinner next month. It has commissioned a limited edition coffee table book on the history of the company.
It will also use the occasion to donate $800,000 - that uncanny number again - to charity, an acknowledgement of the philanthropic legacy of the founder, said Mr Wong.
Upon his death, Mr Boustead left £9,000 - a princely sum at the time - to set up a welfare institution for foreign seaman known as the Boustead Institute.
Demolished and long faded in the annals of Singapore history, the institute is, nonetheless, immortalised in many paintings and pictures thanks to its striking architecture and imposing facade at the junction of Tanjong Pagar and Anson roads.
Mr Boustead did not have any heirs. After his death, his associates took over the running of Boustead & Co, which continued to enjoy unparalleled success for almost a 100 years except for when the two world wars were ongoing.
However, the company's fortunes did wane when it was broken up, twice.
In 1960, it was split into Boustead plc and Boustead Bhd following Malaysia's independence from Britain. The substantive part of the business remained in Malaysia and Singapore.
In 1973, Boustead Bhd carved out a Singapore unit - Taiping Singapore - to comply with Malaysia's race-based affirmative programme which was aimed at narrowing the wealth gap between Malays and Chinese.
The loss of plantation assets, which continued to reside with Boustead Bhd, was a near fatal blow to the Singapore unit as it also had to struggle with losing many of its agency businesses.
Then came another round of mergers and acquisitions after which Taiping became Bousteadco Singapore and was subsequently renamed Boustead Singapore.
During this uncertain period, it tried without much success to reinvent itself as an engineering outfit until 1996, when a group led by Mr Wong assumed control.
Banking on his experience as former managing director of QAF - the maker of Gardenia bread - Mr Wong's initial instinct was to turn Boustead into a food company.
In 1998, it started the Bonjour line of breads and a year later, it acquired the Japanese firm Sushi Deli.
But the foray into food was short-lived. Bonjour was sold to QAF for $15 million in 2000 and Sushi Deli was offloaded to Mr Wong and two managers of the Japanese restaurant for just $340 in 2003.
Today, Boustead's focus is on industrial, real estate, energy and environmental engineering. It has a staff strength of about 700 and operates in 73 countries.
While the current business has little in common with the early enterprises that made Boustead famous, its brand name continues to reap goodwill even from afar.
Take for example a trip Mr Wong made to Sri Lanka three years ago, after a Boustead unit had secured a deal to build the first sea water treatment plant in the country.
'While I was there to introduce other services of Boustead, I met the director-general in charge of power. He said to me: 'Your company was the first to introduce electricity to our country.' Indeed!'
Boustead's success is reflected in its healthy bottom line and cash holdings.
In the year ended March 31, the group reported a 46.1 per cent jump in net profit to $51.5 million. Revenue was up 27.5 per cent at $438.3 million. Its net cash position swelled to $150.8 million, up from $100.7 million the previous year.
This has enabled the company to raise full-year dividend payouts to 10 cents a share from 6.5 cents.
Dividend yield is an attractive 4.3 per cent.
Despite this, Boustead shares are off the radar screen of most retail investors, with daily average turnover at a paltry 74,000.
Mr Wong is not unduly perturbed.
'I've been through hot stocks before. QAF was a hot stock in 1993 to 1995, with 50 million shares in turnover daily, and I got queries from the stock exchange every day.
'Today, I don't get calls. Nobody is interested. Never mind, we have very stable shareholders.'
Nonetheless, the company recognises its stock could do with a little lift. It has proposed undertaking a one-into-two share split to make the stock more attractive to retail investors.
A healthy cash hoard means that Boustead is also in a position to grow more aggressively.
'We are in the phase of looking for acquisitions and not afraid of businesses that are not exactly core. If it's a buy, why not?,' Mr Wong asserted, though he is quick to add that his preference is still in the field of engineering.
Boustead today is very different from the company that began 180 years ago in a Raffles Place office that overlooked the Singapore harbour. It now operates from a nondescript flatted factory in Kampong Ubi.
However, Mr Wong believes Boustead's lasting legacy is not in the bricks and mortar, but in its founder's spirit of enterprise.
He declared: 'My mission is to resurrect this company and I'd like to tell my fellow Singaporeans that we are doing well.'
Failure is not an option.
'It's like your great-great-grandfather's company that passes on to your hand. Can you imagine if you fail and die? It's not just a matter of money.'
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