Richard Eu

Richard Eu’s father gave him one piece of advice about the family business: “Forget it—the politics are too bad.” Richard ignored him. At 42, he joined Eu Yan Sang as general manager. At 46, he led a buyout to rescue it from property developers. At 77, he sold it for S$808 million—on his own terms, with family mission intact.

I had a totally contrarian view to everyone else. You have to believe. You have to have that conviction.

The Warning #

Richard Eu grew up knowing his family’s name adorned a Singapore street. Eu Tong Sen Street honored his great-grandfather, the patriarch who had transformed a small medicine shop into a regional empire spanning TCM, banking, tin mining, and property. But Richard also knew the empire had fragmented. His great-grandfather’s eleven wives had produced thirteen sons, and those sons spent decades fighting over the inheritance. By the time Richard reached adulthood, most family assets had been liquidated.

His father, though serving as non-executive chairman of what remained of Eu Yan Sang, wanted nothing to do with the internal politics. “You will never have a chance to work in a family business,” he told Richard while Richard was still a student. “The politics were so bad. Forget about working for the family.”

Richard listened—for two decades. He built a career outside the family sphere: merchant banking, stockbroking, venture capital, luxury retail management. He learned how modern businesses operated, how brands were built, how capital could fuel growth. He watched Eu Yan Sang stagnate from a distance, its medicine halls unchanged since his great-grandfather’s era.

The Contrarian Choice #

In 1989, one of Richard’s uncles announced his retirement from Eu Yan Sang. Someone would need to take over. Richard, then 42 years old with a successful career behind him, raised his hand. His father’s warning echoed in his mind, but Richard saw something his relatives did not: potential.

Traditional Chinese medicine was widely dismissed as a sunset industry. Younger Singaporeans associated TCM with their grandparents—old-fashioned, unscientific, irrelevant to modern life. The Eu Yan Sang shops reinforced this perception: dim interiors, mysterious herbs in wooden drawers, elderly shopkeepers who spoke only Cantonese dialects. No new stores had opened in sixty years. The business generated steady revenue but showed no signs of growth.

What others saw as terminal decline, Richard recognized as market failure in positioning rather than product. He had spent his career in industries that lived and died by branding and consumer perception. He understood that luxury goods commanded premium prices not because of superior raw materials but because of how they made customers feel. The ancient formulas in those wooden drawers still worked—they had worked for over a century. The company just needed someone willing to modernize how it communicated with consumers.

Richard held what he later called “a totally contrarian view.” He believed TCM’s problem was not its products but its presentation. The philosophy of holistic wellness was gaining relevance worldwide. Singapore’s aging population would need more healthcare, not less. The company just needed someone willing to bridge traditional wisdom and modern expectations.

His uncles saw something different: a fourth-generation cousin seeking leadership that should belong to them. Richard had spent decades outside the family business. Now he appeared ready to take control. Within months of Richard’s arrival as general manager, the jealous uncles organized a response that would test everything Richard believed.

The Phone Call #

March 29, 1990. Richard’s phone rang at 8:30 AM. The caller was from a merchant bank, and the message shattered everything: “We have just received a notice of takeover from Lum Chang.”

Lum Chang was a property developer. They had quietly purchased shares from Richard’s uncles—men who had run the company for decades yet saw no future in Chinese medicine. The hostile takeover gave Lum Chang majority control. They promptly renamed the company L.C. Development Ltd and pivoted toward property. The 111-year-old Eu Yan Sang brand and its TCM operations were not their priority.

Richard faced the reality his father had warned him about. Family politics had done exactly what his father predicted: destroyed the heritage. The uncles who dismissed TCM as worthless had sold their shares to outsiders who saw only real estate value underneath those dusty shops.

The initial shock gave way to uncertainty. Should he accept this as inevitable—the final proof that his father was right? Or should he fight?

The Buyback #

Richard discovered an opportunity within the defeat. Lum Chang wanted the listed company shell and the valuable properties, not the actual TCM business. They promised to sell the medicine operations back to the Eu family when ready. Richard would hold them to that promise.

For three years, he waited and planned. The waiting was strategic—Lum Chang needed time to extract the shell company value before they would be willing to part with the TCM operations. Richard used that time to build his case, to identify which cousins shared his vision, and to structure a deal that would give the fourth generation complete control.

He allied with two fourth-generation cousins who shared his conviction: Robert Eu and Clifford Eu. Together, they structured a leveraged buyout using their own capital. The price was S$21 million—a significant sum that required personal financial commitment from all three cousins. They mortgaged their futures on a business their uncles had declared worthless.

The structure was deliberate and intentional. Richard insisted that the older generation—the uncles whose politics had caused the crisis—be excluded entirely from the new company. “We made a point that the older generation was not going to be involved at all,” he later explained. This wasn’t cruelty; it was survival. The dysfunction that had fragmented the family for decades could not be allowed to infect the new enterprise. The fourth generation would either succeed or fail on their own terms.

In September 1993, Eu Yan Sang International Ltd was incorporated. The cousins had reclaimed their family heritage. Now they had to prove the skeptics wrong about TCM—and justify the S$21 million bet they had placed on their own conviction.

The Transformation #

Richard approached Eu Yan Sang the way he had approached his previous businesses: with professional discipline and modern techniques. His diverse career—banking, stockbroking, venture capital, luxury retail—had equipped him with skills that traditional family businesses often lacked. He knew how to raise capital, how to manage a board, how to build brands, and how to measure performance against benchmarks.

The retail transformation came first. Richard studied luxury boutiques—Chanel, LVMH, the brands he had encountered in his luxury retail management days—and applied their principles to medicine halls. Out went the dim interiors and inconsistent signage. In came bright lighting, clean displays, and trained staff who could explain products in multiple languages. Six inconsistent logos became one unified brand identity with the crane symbol that now marks every store.

Product formats evolved to match modern lifestyles. Loose herbs requiring hours of preparation became convenient capsules for busy professionals. Traditional recipes became teabags that could be steeped in an office. Ready-to-drink bird’s nest in elegant bottles replaced the laborious home preparation that younger generations had neither time nor knowledge to attempt.

Scientific validation became his strategic weapon against skeptics. Richard partnered with universities—the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, the National University of Singapore—to conduct clinical research on century-old formulas. He adopted Australia’s TGA standard, among the world’s strictest pharmaceutical regulations, long before competitors saw the value in compliance. Critics who dismissed TCM as unscientific could no longer ignore peer-reviewed studies and international certifications.

The 2000 SGX listing provided capital and credibility for expansion. TCM clinics followed in 2001, expanding from retail into integrated healthcare where patients could receive both Eastern and Western treatments. A HK$110 million manufacturing facility opened in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long district—130,000 square feet of GMP-certified production capacity. By 2006, Forbes Asia named Eu Yan Sang among its “Best Under a Billion” companies. The sunset industry Richard’s uncles had abandoned was generating real growth and international recognition.

The Philosophy #

Richard’s success came from a distinction he articulated clearly: “We are not a family business, we are a business family. Because the business might change but the family stays.”

This philosophy allowed him to make decisions that pure family sentiment would have blocked. He accepted institutional investors. He hired professional management. He brought in partners like Temasek and Tower Capital Asia during a 2016 privatization. He knew that scaling Eu Yan Sang beyond family capability required expertise the Eus alone could not provide.

The 2017 CEO transition demonstrated this philosophy in action. After 24 years leading operations, Richard stepped back to Chairman while Aaron Boey took over as CEO. The company no longer depended on one family member’s daily involvement.

The Exit #

In 2024, at age 77, Richard completed the final chapter. A Japanese consortium led by Rohto Pharmaceutical and Mitsui & Co. offered S$695 million for 86% of Eu Yan Sang, valuing the company at S$808 million—roughly 38 times the 1993 buyback price. The acquirers wanted exactly what Richard had spent three decades building: a heritage brand with scientific validation, vertical integration, and regional footprint that could serve as a platform for Asian expansion.

The deal brought strategic partners who could take Eu Yan Sang places the family alone could not. Rohto brought pharmaceutical R&D capabilities and Japanese distribution networks. Mitsui contributed supply chain expertise and connections across Asia. The combination promised a TCM enterprise with credibility to expand beyond traditional Chinese diaspora markets into mainstream wellness.

Richard structured the exit to preserve what mattered most. The Eu family retained 10% ownership—a meaningful stake that demonstrated continuing belief in the company’s future. He continues as Chairman, ensuring continuity of vision during the transition. The brand’s founding mission—余仁生, “Caring for Mankind”—remains the north star under new ownership with family guidance.

His reflection on the 35-year journey returns to 1990, when Lum Chang’s takeover seemed like the end of everything: “The best thing that happened throughout that traumatic experience” was the property developer’s promise to sell back the TCM operations. What his uncles intended as abandonment became the foundation for transformation. What they dismissed as worthless became the vehicle for S$808 million in value creation.

Richard Eu spent 35 years proving his father’s warning incomplete. The family politics were indeed as bad as predicted—but they could be overcome by someone willing to start fresh, exclude the dysfunction, and build something greater than inheritance alone could provide. The man who ignored his father’s advice ended up validating his father’s fears about politics while defying his father’s conclusions about possibility.

The lessons of Richard Eu’s journey extend beyond typical family business dynamics. Conviction matters more than consensus. Professional discipline can successfully transform even the most traditional of industries. And sometimes the very best way to truly honor a family legacy is to reinvent it completely rather than preserve it unchanged.

Last updated: January 23, 2026