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2018 Rockwills Trustee Challenge Nationwide 1st Runner-up

Azhar Iskandar Hew, group CEO of Rockwills Corp Sdn Bhd.

Educating the public and creating awareness

Azhar was deputy CEO of Rockwills Trustee from January 2016 to June 2019, before taking on his current role when Rockwills co-founder Saw Leong Aun retired last year.

Azhar has seen the company grow and evolve over the years, in addition to increasing public awareness of the importance of estate planning tools. When the company started in 1995, it only drafted 108 wills. Business grew tenfold the following year and then doubled to about 2,500 wills in 1997.

Rockwills did a record-breaking 16,000 wills last year. In fact, the company set new records in nine of the 12 months. “I inherited the success. The success of Rockwills is due to Saw’s hard work. I am expected to build on from there and make the company more successful,” says Azhar.

“[We set records] due to the growing societal awareness and also having more franchises join us from the financial planning industry. When more people talk about estate planning, clients are more ready to accept the idea.”

Rockwills has written more than 250,000 wills thus far. However, there is still room for growth as the size of the market is about five million people.

“What was challenging for me and Rockwills was building public awareness of wills and trusts and creating a sense of urgency for these to be done. We are continuing to do that as the number of Malaysians who have written a will is still low,” says Azhar.

“There has not been a formal study but by our estimates, the current number of Malaysians who do not have a will is between 85% to 90%. Ten years ago, the percentage would have been higher, likely at 95%. Despite the growing awareness, many still procrastinate.”

He points out that the bigger one’s estate is, the more important it is to be detailed when estate planning. He says many clients come in just wanting to do a simple will, even though they are tycoons or millionaires.

“If you have a business that is a gold mine and provides income for the family, and you do not have a succession plan, it will lead to fragmentation and family feuds when the estate is distributed. You need a plan to structure the business into a trust so that you will not have family members fighting and former in-laws suddenly becoming shareholders because you did not review your will that named your ex-wife as a beneficiary,” says Azhar.

“This is in a business succession trust rather than a will. So, the succession of management in the company can take place quickly by using a trust, which will not be subject to probate upon death, and also prevent any complications in succession in the event that the business owner becomes permanently disabled or mentally incapacitated or goes missing without any sign of returning.

“People often ignore estate planning because they do not have the time for it. This is sad because when you are close to death and finally want to do it, estate planning will be tough because time will be against you. You need to think these things through, especially business succession planning.”

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