60th Anniversary in Japan Reception
February 5, 2015The Tai Chong Cheang (TCC) Group celebrated its 60th Anniversary in Japan with a well- attended reception at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on January 22nd, 2015.
116 guests attended including former and present NYK Chairmen, T. Kusakari and K. Miyahara, KLine and NS United Presidents, J. Asakura and T. Obata, and Sumitomo Shoji Chairman, K. Ohmori. Japanese shipyards were also well represented by Imabari President, Y. Higaki and Namura Chairman, T. Namura. Together with other senior executives from the major Japanese shipping companies, trading companies, banks, shipyards, and makers, all enjoyed an evening of reminiscing and camaraderie.
TCC Group Chairman and CEO, Kenneth Koo opened the festivities paying tribute to his late father K.H. Koo and late uncle K.W. Koo who together established Dowa & Co. in January of 1955 on the 4th floor of the old Iino Building. From that beginning, he added, “three generations of the Koo Family have had the great pleasure and privilege of establishing many long term friendships with our good old Japanese shipping friends”.
He also talked about how during those 60 years, those Friendships developed into Relationships and Partnerships with the major Japanese shipyards and shipping companies today. From the “shikumisen” projects of the Silver Longevity to Kline in the late 60’s, the Silver Zephyr with NYK and Seatransport with MOL in the early 70’s, and the 1st capesize timecharters in the mid 80’s with what is now NS United to the 1st tankers ever built at Namura shipyard, each were significant “stepping stones of TCC in Japan.”
That legacy carries the TCC Group today as Chairman Koo outlined the company’s Vision and Strategy:
“Japan, is the main focus of our Blue Chip, Top-of-Mind, Boutique shipowning strategy. This is made possible by Six Decades of close relationship and understanding between TCC and all of our valuable business partners in Japan to ensure we always focus only on the Safe, Reliable and Environmentally Friendly carriage of cargoes for our customers all over the world. We don’t want to just build ships. We want to build ships towards specific commercial or strategic requirements that our business partners may have. To ensure that all our business projects are developed with a Win-Win benefit so that both our business partners and us will benefit mutually in the long term.”
In a final tribute to the previous generation, TCC Chairman quoted and repeated what his late uncle said to a reporter when asked what he expected to say at the 60th Anniversary in 2015, “Thank you to our Japanese customers for keeping us in business and thank you to all our employees, onboard and ashore, for all your hard work”.
