{"id":64520,"date":"2020-03-05T13:21:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T05:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=64520"},"modified":"2020-03-05T13:25:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T05:25:31","slug":"sugar-man-robert-kuok-remains-malaysias-richest-in-forbes-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=64520","title":{"rendered":"Sugar man Robert Kuok remains Malaysia’s richest in Forbes list"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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KUALA LUMPUR: File photo of Tan Sri Robert Kuok (Right) shaking hands with former Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz. Photo courtesy of BERNAMA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
By Massita Ahmad
 <\/h5>\n\n\n\n

SINGAPORE, March 5 (NNN-BERNAMA) — An ease in the Malaysian economy as well as the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak seemed to have taken a toll on its tycoons, says Forbes Asia, which released its 2020 Forbes Malaysia Rich List Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forbes Asia said the wealth of the country\u2019s 50 richest fell for a second straight year due to a weaker ringgit and a decline of close t 10 percent in the country\u2019s benchmark stock index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their collective net worth of US$79 billion is down 7.0 per cent from a year ago, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonagenarian business legend Tan Sri Robert Kuok took up the top spot again with a net worth of US$11.5 billion, a position he has held for over two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kuok was among four of the listed whose wealth shrank by more than US$1 billion in the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retaining his spot at number two, Quek Leng Chan of Hong Leong group, added US$300 million to his fortune of $9.7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ananda Krishnan of Maxis took the third spot with a net worth of US$5.9 billion, down by US$300 million from the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hardest-hit in dollar terms was banking tycoon Dr Teh Hong Piow (No. 5, US$4.85 billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The founder of Public Bank saw his fortune buffeted by headwinds in Malaysia\u2019s banking industry, slipping two spots from No. 3 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teh saw US$1.85 billion shaved off his wealth since the last list as shares in Public Bank, the country\u2019s second-largest bank by market value, declined roughly 30 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Kuok and Teh, Lim Kok Thay (No. 7, US$3.2 billion) and Hap Seng\u2019s Lau Cho Kun (No. 10, US$2.3 billion) also saw their wealth reduced by more than US$1 billion as their fortunes fell by US$1.2 billion and US$1.1 billion respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AirAsia\u2019s Dr Tony Fernandes (No. 41) and Kamarudin Meranun (No. 43) saw more than a third of their fortunes shaved to US$335 million and US$315 million respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, 22 of Malaysia’s richest suffered a slide in their net worth from a year ago, but an equal number were modestly better off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the latter group was casino mogul Dr Chen Lip Keong, who moved into the top five for the first time at No. 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booming growth at Chen\u2019s NagaWorld casino complex in Cambodia, prior to the coronavirus outbreak, helped push his net worth up 6.0 per cent to US$5.3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another notable gainer was Kuan Kam Hon (No. 9), who controls Hartalega Holdings, the world\u2019s largest maker of nitrile gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His net worth grew US$400 million to US$2.8 billion, from $2.4 billion a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were five newcomers on the list, the richest of whom are a pair of inheritors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debuting at No. 6 were brothers Lee Yeow Chor and Lee Yeow Seng, who share a combined US$4.8 billion legacy left by their father Dr Lee Shin Cheng, the architect of the IOI palm oil and property empire, who passed away last June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other new listees include two tech entrepreneurs: Chu Jenn Weng (No. 47, US$280 million), founder of electronics maker ViTrox; and former Hewlett-Packard engineer Oh Kuang Eng (No. 50, US$255 million), whose Mi Technovation makes semiconductor equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Massita Ahmad  SINGAPORE, March 5 (NNN-BERNAMA) — An ease in the Malaysian economy as well as the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak seemed to have taken a toll on its tycoons, says Forbes Asia, which released its 2020 Forbes Malaysia Rich List Thursday. Forbes Asia said the wealth of the country\u2019s 50 richest fell for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":14107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,300,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64520"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}