POPULAR financial management expert Dennis Ng died of a heart attack on Wednesday at the age of 43.

 

Mr Ng suffered the heart attack after a three-hour finance seminar at Park Mall and was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A defibrillator was also used.

 

He was taken to Singapore General Hospital where he was pronounced dead, Lianhe Wanbao reported yesterday.

 

He leaves his wife and two sons, one in Primary 2 and the other in Secondary 2.

 

Mr Ng had built up a strong following with his extensive media work and high-selling books.

 

He was also the co-founder of HousingLoanSG.com, an independent mortgage consultancy portal, in 2003.

 

His knack for putting across financial information in an easily digestible way made him a popular speaker and earned him regular spots dishing out advice on various media platforms, including mypaper, Chinese evening daily Lianhe Wanbao and radio station 95.8 FM.

 

On his Facebook page yesterday, many friends and former seminar participants expressed shock and sadness at his death, with one describing him as an 'amazing, richly passionate and truly giving person'.

 

Mr Ng was deputy manager of international banking at Keppel TatLee until 2000, when he became an adviser at insurer Great Eastern Life.

 

In 2003, he co-founded mortgage consultancy Leverage Holdings with wife Patricia Hung.

According to his website, Mr Ng was an accountant by training and had 19 years of bank lending experience.

 

Last year, he won the inaugural SME1 Asia Awards Top 5 Award in the emerging entrepreneur category for his financial education portal MasterYourFinance.com.

 

He also wrote books such as Mastering Your Personal Finance and What Your School Never Taught You About Money, which made The Straits Times bestseller list.

 

Mr Vinod Nair, chief executive of website Smartloans.sg, expressed shock at the news. 'He basically pioneered the mortgage broking industry where unbiased advice is offered to property buyers,' he said.