Who are Southeast Asia’s real 'Crazy Rich Asians'?
Six other members on the ‘Forbes’ world’s richest list have a combined age of 435 years and a net worth that totals more than US$58 billion
Each year, we have Forbes magazine to thank for publishing its annual list of the world’s richest individuals.
Although the southeast region of Asia is still primarily a developing area, with huge potential waiting to be uncovered, it is also the place where nearly 5 per cent of the world’s billionaires – 102 of them – call home.
Whether starting out as lone entrepreneurs, or working with their already wealthy families, these tycoons have successfully expanded their companies into formidable regional business empires. One person who might have popped up a lot on your social media recently is Robert Kuok.
His countrymen have always known him as the nation’s richest man with tremendous influence.
But the life of the Malaysian – whose many business interests include ownership of sugar cane plantations, property, mining and the luxury hotel group, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts – had remained largely unknown because of his reclusive nature.
However, since the release of his highly anticipated memoir, Robert Kuok: A Memoir, two months before the nation’s general election in May, you would have been hard-pressed not to see the 94-year-old’s name and mention of his US$14.8 billion fortune in the news.
Here, we have gathered a collection of some of Southeast Asia’s other ultra-rich who dominate the region’s economies alongside Kuok.
