10 Richest Men in Malaysia (2015) by Forbes


Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien and some local business tycoon maintain their position in the list of the Richest Individuals in Malaysia organized by Forbes.

Tan Sri Robert Kuok, 91, is the founder of the Hotel Shangri-la and his sources of wealth are from palm oil, shipping and real estate. According to Forbes, Kuok Group controls several listed companies in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

Here are the 10 Malaysia's richest.

1) Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien

Robert Kuok, Malaysia’s richest man, raised $300 million in 2014 with the Singapore listing of his PACC Offshore Services Holdings, Asia’s largest operator of vessels for offshore oil & gas exploration. His Kuok Group controls a slew of listed companies in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. The Chinese Malaysian tycoon made his fortune in sugar, palm oil, shipping and real estate. A big source of wealth is a stake in palm oil giant Wilmar International, which is run by nephew Kuok Khoon Hong, a Singapore billionaire. Robert Kuok also controls Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, once the world’s most profitable daily newspaper.


Total current assets: US $ 11.3 billion (RM40.8 billion)
The main companies: Kuok Group / Kerry Group
Sources of wealth: Palm oil, shipping and real estate



2) Tan Sri T. Ananda Krishnan

Ananda Krishnan, who continues to be Malaysia’s second-richest person, took a $1.6 billion hit to his net worth in 2014-15, partly because of the slump in shares of Bumi Armada, an offshore oilfield services provider. The sudden departure of Bumi’s CEO in December 2014 sparked speculation that he might take the company private. In February 2015 he bailed out state-owned 1Malaysia Development so that it could repay a $555 million loan that, reports say, was guaranteed by his holding company, Usaha Tegas. Telecom assets make up more than half his wealth, led by his controlling stake in Malaysia’s Maxis. But his debt-laden Indian telecom, Aircel, continues to be embroiled in a federal investigation into how he acquired it. Krishnan has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. His only son is a Buddhist monk in Thailand.





Total current assets: US $ 9.7 billion (RM35 billion)
The main company: Usaha Tegas, Astro, Maxis
Sources of wealth: Telecommunications

3) Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan

Quek Leng Chan chairs privately held conglomerate Hong Leong Co. (Malaysia), which holds stakes in the finance, property and food sectors. Now investing in oil & gas, he forked out at least $180 million in 2014 to acquire sizable stakes in Indonesia oil & gas producer Samudra Energy, Malaysian outfits Scomi Energy Services and Alam Maritim Resources, and Singapore-listed Ezion, a supplier of support vessels for oilfields.

His cousin, Singapore billionaire Kwek Leng Beng, chairs a part of the family business, Hong Leong Group. Quek inherited his fortune from his father, one of 3 brothers who started a small banking group in the 1920s.

Total current assets: US $ 5.6 billion (RM20.2 billion)
The main companies: Hong Leong Group Malaysia
Sources of wealth: Banking and real estate



4) Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay 

Lim Kok Thay opened the Genting Jeju Casino in South Korea in January, part of a multibillion-dollar push to expand the Genting Group globally. Fortune is down by $1 billion in a sluggish year for its casinos in Malaysia and Singapore. Business at Genting Malaysia was hit by the drop in Chinese visitors after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared a year ago, while Genting Singapore is seeing fewer high rollers as the mainland Chinese economy slows. Wealth is shared with his mother, Lee Kim Hua, and other family members. His late father, Lim Goh Tong, started the business after arriving in Malaysia from Fujian,China at age 19.


Total current assets: $ 5.5 billion (RM19.9 billion)
The main companies: Genting Berhad
Sources of wealth: Casinos




5) Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow


Teh Hong Piow owns nearly a quarter of Public Bank, which he founded in 1966 and built into Malaysia’s third-largest banking group by assets. His bank has maintained a track record for producing consistent profitability since its inception. He started his career as a clerk with Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp and also owns 44% of insurance business LPI Capital. Piow funded a chair in his name for applied research in banking and finance at local university Tunku Abdul Rahman. He was conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Universiti Malaya in 1989. An important cause for him is crime prevention and the welfare of police officers.


Total current assets: US $ 5.4 billion (RM19.5 billion)
The main companies: Public Bank Berhad
Sources of wealth: Banking



6) Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng

Lee Shin Cheng boosted his wealth after splitting his plantation and property businesses into two listed companies in early 2014. He is the executive chairman of both while older son, Yeow Chor, runs palm oil heavyweight IOI Corp. and younger son Yeow Seng heads IOI Properties. Other children, all daughters, also work for his companies. Lee grew up on a rubber plantation where his father ran a Chinese food shop. At age 11 he left school in order to support his family and sold ice cream on a bicycle for 4 years before returning to finish high school.




Total current assets: US $ 4.6 billion (RM16.6 billion)
The main companies: IOI Corporation Berhad
Sources of wealth: Palm oil and real estate



7) Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Yeoh Tiong Lay

Yeoh Tiong Lay’s 60-year-old YTL Corp. boasts $5.3 billion in annual revenue and interests in utilities, hotels and property development, including a 2,000-acre land bank in Malaysia. Now run by his eldest son Francis, YTL Corp. owns PowerSeraya, Singapore’s second-largest power plant, and co-owns the Eastern & Oriental Express, the luxury train that runs from Singapore to Thailand. It also owns the Ritz-Carlton in Kuala Lumpur. Yeoh was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy by Universiti Malaysia Sabah and holds a Doctor of Engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. In 2013 he donated $11 million to King’s College London to set up the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy & Law. All of his 7 children are involved in the business.

Total current assets: US $ 3 billion (RM10.8 billion)
The main companies: YTL Corporation
Sources of wealth: Construction and real estate



8) Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary

The reclusive tycoon Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary, as much envied as he is maligned, continued to defy detractors by winning high-profile state contracts for a mass-transit rail network and a digital broadcasting platform. He runs power plants, ports, plantations and defense suppliers under his MMC Corp. and DRB-Hicom and holds a near monopoly on the distribution of rice in the country. AlBukhary benefited from the removal of price controls on sugar. He is now restructuring his commodities business to pare a mountain of debt. He founded AlBukhary International University, providing full tuition to financially needy students as well as the Islamic Art Museum. A high school dropout, AlBukhary came from a modest family and started out as a rice trader.




Total current assets: US $ 2.9 billion (RM10.5 billion)
The main companies: AlBukhary Corporation Sdn Bhd
Sources of wealth: Various including transport and logistics, plantations, property development, defense and armory as well as engineering and power generation


9) Goh Peng Ooi

Goh Peng Ooi is Malaysia’s first tech billionaire. He started his career at IBM in 1989. His Singapore-listed Silverlake Axis now provides financial software for 40% of Southeast Asia’s banks. Its stock price jumped 400% in 3 years, as of February 2015, and remains one of Singapore’s best-performing mid-cap stocks.The seventh of 10 children, Goh is the only one who graduated from college. He was educated in Tokyo and originally studied nuclear physics but later switched to electrical engineering.





Total current assets: US $ 1.6 billion (RM5.8 billion)
The main companies: Silverlake Axis Ltd.
Sources of wealth: Softwares




10) Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian & Dato Lee Hau Hian


Lee Oi Hian and Lee Hau Hian’s fortune jumped by 40%, thanks partly to an investment by younger brother Hau Hian in London-listed chemicals company Synthomer. His day job is managing director of Batu Kawan, started by their late father, Lee Loy Seng. Older brother Oi Hian runs Kuala Lumpur Kepong, the group’s plantation division that has also owned body-care and toiletries company Crabtree & Evelyn since 1996. Another brother, Soon Hian, chairs family’s privately held Taiko Group, which has interests in real estate, chemical and fertilizer manufacturing, and aviation.



Total current assets: $ 1.5 billion (RM5.4 billion)
The main companies: Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad
Sources of wealth: Palm oil, chemicals and real estate


1 comment :

  1. The Chinese Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok made his money in sugar, palm oil, shipping and property. And he did share his point of view on how to make money during Kuok Group’s 60th Anniversary called “Robert Kuok Hock Nien notes on the past sixty years”, read it at:
    http://kidbuxblog.com/robert-kuok-hock-nien-notes-on-the-past-sixty-years/

    ReplyDelete

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