A rival studio, Mingxing Film Company, formed a syndicate with 5 other Shanghai companies to monopolize the distribution and exhibition markets in order to exclude Tianyi films from being shown in theater chains in Shanghai and Southeast Asia. The brothers therefore became interested in forming their own network, and Runme Shaw, who was then the distribution manager, traveled to Singapore to establish a movie distribution business for Southeast Asia. Runme incorporated the Hai Seng Co. (海星, which later became the Shaw Brothers Pte Ltd) to distribute films made by Tianyi and other studios. In 1927, they operated their own cinema in Tanjong Pagar in Singapore, expanded in Malaya, and opened four cinemas there. The number of cinemas owned by the Shaw chain in South East Asia would eventually reach 200 by the 1970s before it declined. In 1928 Run Run Shaw moved to Singapore to assist Runme.