“If this is You, we will explore it”: No experience, no partner but he obeyed the call to create social impact in emerging markets

It was as good as dead, but they took a chance to nurse it back to life and, as it turned out, life more abundantly.

Changjiang Fertilizer Holdings was a failed legacy investment for the first fund of Providence Capital Management.

The investment had long been written off but the managing partner of Providence Daniel Long and his co-owner decided to resuscitate the defunct company that barely had a dime to its name, via a reverse-takeover exercise.

“We wanted to revive the fortunes of the company to recover some value for its long-suffering minority shareholders,” said Daniel, 54.

What was supposed to be a six-to-nine-month exercise, however, dragged on for two years. By then, Daniel and his partner had put in substantial time and money into this endeavour.

Thus, when the company was finally successfully re-listed as Olive Tree Estates in the December of 2017, Daniel had plans for it to become a successful real estate developer.

Over the years, Providence’s portfolio of funds has invested and co-developed more than $2 billion worth of real estate in Singapore and its know-how could be leveraged for Olive Tree.  

Daniel Long with his wife and two children in December 2017 when Olive Tree Estates was successfully listed.

“I felt that the years of uncompensated sacrifice which we had put into rehabilitating the company would perhaps bear some meaningful financial reward further down the road,” Daniel explained to Salt&Light.

One month later, while waiting to run an errand at the Central Depository building, Daniel did his quiet time reading on Zechariah 4.

“I half-joked to myself that Zechariah 4 – which speaks of two olive trees feeding oil into a bowl that trims seven lamps – was a sign that Olive Tree would become a very successful real estate company.

“I was looking forward to some fair compensation for my past efforts,” he admitted.

But those thoughts did not find resonance in his inner man.

Instead, he received an impression from God that Olive Tree should be repurposed as a social impact company to provide social and affordable housing to the masses in emerging markets.

In addition, this housing model was to also offer education, healthcare and social services as part of a holistic solution to uplift lives and build community.

The goal was to optimise profit so as to maximise the social impact for the communities there.

The unmistakable whisper too loud to ignore

“A disquiet kicked in right away. What do we know about social housing in developing countries? What do we know about establishing early childhood education facilities, healthcare and family service centres?” said Daniel.

More questions and doubts continued to flood his mind.

“Would building affordable housing generate sufficient margin and cash flow for us to provide quality education and healthcare?

“How would we ensure a fair return on investment for our shareholders?

“We have been taken for a ride so many times in emerging markets, how would we be able to find a trustworthy local partner?”

Undertaking such a project would be almost impossible, Daniel thought.

However, he knew that such a tall order had to be from the Lord.

“The unmistakable whisper from within grew into a deep conviction which was impossible to ignore. ‘If this is You,’ I told God, ‘we will explore this’,” he said.

Daniel and his team began weekly travels from the February of 2018 to neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

As they walked the land to assess the needs, they saw many homes that were so poorly constructed and dangerous that they ultimately became abandoned slums.

“I used my finger to dig into a brick in a one-storey subsidised housing unit,” he recalled. “To my shock, a part of the brick disintegrated before my eyes. The builders must have used a lot more sand than cement to put the bricks together.”

A social and subsidised housing site in Indonesia. Poor quality and a lack of community amenities led to these developments turning into abandoned slums over time.

“The vision we have, unlike other developers out there, is not to simply build, take profit and go home. The rural poor not only need safe and quality homes to go home to, but they should also experience a vibrant community life through the provision of other critical amenities such as family resource centres and kindergartens,” he added.  

Yet after three months of walking the ground and assessing potential partnerships, Daniel and his team feared that they would not be able to find a partner that was both trustworthy and had excellent ground execution capability.

The reality was that the sanctity of contract and the enforceability of law may not be guaranteed in emerging countries.

“Everywhere we turned, doors closed before us. In some cases, we were saved from potentially catastrophic outcomes. Later on, it became clear to us that we were being prepared as ‘lambs to the slaughter’. I told God that the task was near impossible,” said Daniel.

Soon after he “gave up”, God showed up and delivered the partner of their dreams on a silver platter to them.

An unexpected partnership

An investor happened to introduce them to one of his former staffers based in Vietnam. The meeting was to take place at the end of a long day at a noisy bar.

Understandably, Daniel did not hold much expectations for it.

However, he discovered that the acquaintance was one of the principals of the National Housing Organization (NHO), one of the largest social and affordable housing developers in Vietnam.

This acquaintance shared that NHO is mainly owned by a Singaporean and run by a team of Koreans based in Vietnam.

In the last 12 years, NHO has built more than 10,000 affordable homes across eight provinces including Ha Long Bay, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.

The organisation is not only known for building quality homes but over-delivering on product specifications instead of trying to maximise profits by cutting corners.

In April 2018, Daniel and his team met the team from NHO for the first time – an unforgettable meeting for him.

It turned out that the Koreans were children of Christian missionaries and pastors, and they had come to Vietnam to answer God’s call to serve the people there. In the region, they had been funding and running schools, social enterprises and various social impact projects.

Daniel at Handong University in 2023, where many of his Korean partners graduated from. Handong University is a Christian University in Pohang, South Korea.

“As we moved around their community and observed how they conduct themselves, it has become clear to us that the group of Koreans never perceive relationships through transactional eyes,” Daniel noted.

“For them, people who are brought into their lives are divinely-appointed opportunities to help, encourage and bless.”

At his first meeting with the Koreans, Daniel excitedly shared with them what he felt was God’s divine blueprint for Olive Tree Estates.

Kim Kyoo Chul, Executive Director on the board of NHO and its de facto CEO, did not seem to share Daniel’s excitement.

“Your vision is big, while my vision is small,” Kim said to him.

“It was essentially his way of saying that I was talking way too big for my tiny little shoes. Later I learnt that he was questioning whether the vision for Olive Tree was God-originated or man-engineered,” said Daniel.

In the weeks that followed, Kim would constantly refer to Daniel as the “baby and intern”.

“It was to help me posture myself correctly in a new country and environment. I was reminded that I cannot simply take templates and solutions from the Western and developed countries and apply them to emerging markets,” he said.

In June 2018, Kim extended an unusual invitation to Olive Tree Estates to participate in four of its ongoing projects on a cost-to-cost basis. In order to join in, Olive Tree and Providence would have to raise USD$30 million for the projects.  

“From a business perspective, it made no sense for them to do it as there was nothing in it for them. The projects were already had their own investors and one of the projects had already completed the first phase of the development,” said Daniel.

In order to bring Olive Tree on board, NHO had to persuade its other investors to cease their existing investments.

Daniel and Kim, who were guests at a wedding. Regarding the unusual offer by NHO, Kim told Daniel: “I did this for you not because you are my partner but because you are my brother.”

Unknown to Daniel then, Kim and his team had been praying that God would bring them the right partner in season for the next lap of NHO’s journey.

They felt that Olive Tree was to be their divinely-appointed partner, even though Olive Tree, being a freshly listed small-cap company, had no track record in Vietnam and very little in the way of finances to grow NHO’s footprint.

They had been presented with this unbelievable offer, but Daniel did not think he and his team would be able to raise the money.

“I felt it was impossible,” he said. “Olive Tree had not much capital and Providence did not have the track record in Vietnam nor the asset class experience in affordable housing to persuade investors to put in the money.

“I wrote off our chances.”

With God, nothing is impossible?

During that time, Daniel received a diagnosis of a frozen shoulder. MRI scans showed that he had two torn tendons. His surgeon felt that reconstruction surgery was required and warned that he would have to contend with an extended period of rehabilitation.

“To raise US$30 million, travelling, pitching and multi-geographical meetings were inevitable. It was again impossible to do the needful,” said Daniel.

Despite these work and physical challenges, Daniel went for his church’s family camp in June. He currently serves as the General Superintendent of the children and youth ministry in his church, Barker Road Methodist Church.

During the church camp, the guest speaker Pastor Jeff Yuen spoke about healing and the church members were encouraged to practise what they had just learnt.

An enthusiastic young adult seated in front of him prayed for Daniel’s shoulder, and asked if him it was better.

“I didn’t want to discourage him so I said it seemed better,” Daniel recalled. “But of course, I still went for my scheduled surgery to resolve the frozen shoulder and mend the two torn tendons.”

What was meant to be a three-hour operation took only an hour because his surgeon discovered that the two torn tendons had miraculously mended.

The post-surgical report that documented the healing.

“It was impossible for the tendons to mend itself naturally in two weeks,” he marvelled. “My doctor gave me the green light to go to Vietnam the next week.”

The healing was a powerful encouragement to Daniel.

“That was when I knew that God was behind all of this. Zechariah 4’s word of the Lord that the impossible becomes possible ‘not by might nor by power, but by His spirit’ began coming to pass.”

Would Olive Tree succeed in raising USD$30 million in order to realise its vision to provide affordable housing for the underserved masses in Vietnam? Read Part Two of the story here.

RELATED STORIES: 

At the height of his real estate career, he was tormented by demons for 49 days

“We are just managers. God is our boss”: How PropertyLimBrothers built a culture of collaboration, not competition

When one man’s search for power took him through darkness and danger

The post “If this is You, we will explore it”: No experience, no partner but he obeyed the call to create social impact in emerging markets appeared first on Salt&Light.