The Straits Times / The Business Times News on OSIM

BUSINESSWEEK'S ASIA TOP 100

12 S'pore firms rank among region's best

THE spirit of entrepreneurship is flowering in Singapore. Just check BusinessWeek's Top 100 Hot Growth Companies in Asia for 2006, where 12 Singapore finds are listed. Raffles Education, which boasts a network of 26 private colleges across China, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Thailand and India, has bagged second place. It was pipped for the top honours by Thailand-based Precious Shipping, which runs a fleet of small cargo vessels.

'Raffles has managed to double its revenues every other year through opportunistic acquisitions. The company is now building up a cash pile for an eventual purchase in North America or Europe,' said the BusinessWeek summary on Raffles Education.

Other Singapore firms that made it into the top 20 were KS Energy Services, an energy services provider, at No.12; Hi-P International, an electronics contract manufacturer, at No.16, and Jaya Holdings, a shipping company, at No.17. OSIM, Unisteel Technology, CSE Global, Hyflux, First Engineering, HTL, Elec & Eltek and Labroy Marine also found a place in the list.

This year's list of Asia's best-performing growth companies - those with annual sales of US$50 million (S$77.1 million) to US$500 million - was drawn from the Standard & Poor's/Citigroup extended market indexes for the developed and emerging markets of Asia as of Oct 26, BusinessWeek said.