Along the way, the founder of the IOI Group earned the nickname “The Tree Whisperer” for talking and singing to the palm oil trees, presumably to coax them to be more fruitful.
With IOI Central Boulevard Towers and the upcoming Marina View, IOI Properties’ CEO Lee Yeow Seng has shown his appetite to undertake multi-billion developments here
Lee Yeow Seng remembers clearly how, as a young boy, he often followed his father, Lee Shin Cheng, across remote Sabah to develop one tract of land after another into palm oil plantations. From such visits, the boy learnt to appreciate the effort needed to clear the land, build the infrastructure, plant the crops, and tend to the growing trees before the harvest some years later. By the time he passed away in 2019, Lee Shin Cheng had built up a palm oil empire that overtook those that used to dominate this industry.
