Entrepreneurship is a grueling endeavor. Yet, when a business succeeds, the upside is virtually uncapped.

It is no wonder, then, that most corporate employees harbor such ambitions at some point in their careers.

“What IF …”

Too often, this manifests as technical managers abruptly pivoting into the food and beverage industry, or other ventures entirely unrelated to their daily expertise.

Yet, part-time entrepreneurs rarely achieve success on a grand scale.

The more viable, high-conviction route is to achieve absolute mastery in your chosen career, and when the window of opportunity presents itself, execute a management buyout (MBO).

Within the Bursa Malaysia Quality 50 (BMQ50) Index, at least two companies were forged under these circumstances: Bermaz Auto and Aurelius Technologies.

For Aurelius Technologies Berhad (ATech), the instruments of this creation were Lee Chong Yeow and Loh Hock Chiang. Mr. Lee Chong Yeow originally co-founded BCM Electronics (initially incorporated as Bakti Comintel Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd.) in August 1993. Years later, he partnered with Loh Hock Chiang to orchestrate BCM’s historic MBO in 2017, subsequently serving as ATech’s first Group CEO and Executive Director upon its listing vehicle’s incorporation in February 2021.

BCM was never a typical, localized assembly workshop; it was conceived specifically to facilitate a high-profile technology transfer agreement between the global telecommunications giant Motorola Incorporated and Comintel Sdn. Bhd.

The core objective of this strategic alliance was to cultivate world-class manufacturing capabilities for advanced communication devices right in Malaysia. BCM commenced its operations in modest, rented premises in Prai, Penang, with an incredibly lean footprint—operating just a single manual assembly line focused strictly on the functional testing of communication products.

Gradually, through decades of systematic scaling, this lean startup morphed into a multi-plant advanced manufacturing powerhouse.

In the process of this evolution, the team cultivated deep, institutional expertise in materials procurement, printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), mechanical box-build integration, and sophisticated end-of-line testing.

By 2017, when Comintel Corporation Berhad decided to exit the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) sector, the operating group’s lead managers seized the moment to execute a clean management buyout.

The rationale behind Comintel’s exit was clear: the EMS industry had become highly capital-intensive, and the struggling parent company was no longer willing or able to fund the heavy capital expenditures required to maintain competitiveness.

The two-man team of Lee and Loh took on a massive personal and financial risk, but it was a risk backed by a deep operational conviction in a business they had personally built and understood.

History has proven their conviction correct.

Between the transition year of 2017 and the fully consolidated public year of 2022 (FYE January 2023), revenues expanded from RM395.9 million to RM482.4 million, representing a highly respectable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.02%.

In retrospect, the ingredients of this MBO’s success are easy to identify: the core customer relationships remained completely intact, and the operational team didn’t miss a beat.

Yet, actually executing such a transaction required an extraordinary leap of faith. In 2017, Loh Hock Chiang was 52 years old, while Lee Chong Yeow was already 72 years old.

For senior corporate leaders holding comfortable positions in established enterprises, this narrative offers a compelling alternative career path to ponder when structural corporate shifts occur.

To be sure, this story carries a healthy dose of self-selection bias, but the business world continues to prove that fortune favors the bold.

It certainly rewarded Lee Chong Yeow and Loh Hock Chiang.