Headline Top 40 Richest Malaysians MediaTitle The Star Date ...

Headline Top 40 Richest Malaysians

MediaTitle The Star

Date 23 Mar 2019 Language English

Circulation 201,943 Readership 605,829

Section Star BizWeek Page No 1,14TO21

ArticleSize 8598 cm² Journalist N/A

PR Value RM 1,381,293

The rich became poorer by RM22bil

TOP-40 RICHEST MALAYSIANS IN 2018 Ranking

2018 2017 2018

RM'BIL 2017

RM'BIL RM'BIL + / ( - )

%

FOR the first time in five years, the 40 wealthiest Malaysians saw their wealth decline. The total wealth of the top-40 Malaysians based on their shareholdings in listed companies dropped by RM22.4bil to RM268.1bil as of end-2018.

The decline in the value of the 40 richest Malaysians - compiled based on their effective interest in listed companies in Malaysia and overseas - came amidst a drop in the FBM KLCI of 6% due to global uncertain-ties. The changes in business policies that came about after the new gov-ernment came to power on May 9, 2018 exacerbated the drop in the total wealth of the rich.

In absolute amount, the person who saw the biggest drop in wealth is T. Ananda Krishnan, whose net wealth feh by RM7.64bil to RM12.77bil as at end-2018. His three compaies - Maxis Bhd, Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd and Bumi Armada Bhd - all saw a drop in values due to changes in the business environment they operated. The worst hit is Bumi Armada, a service provider to the oil and gas industry, that is battling bankers on the weight of debts amounting close to RM9.5bil.

Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay came a close second in absolute loss of paper wealth as his net worth was shaved off by RM7.25bil to RM16.56bil. The share prices of both Genting Bhd, which runs the casino and Genting Malaysia Bhd that operates the theme park fell by 32% and 46% respective-ly in 2018.

Lim who oversees a global business empire nevertheless is the fifth rich-est man and sits at the helm of a group with a cash pile of RM8.8bil.

In terms of percentage, MyEG Services Bhd founders saw then-wealth cut by 58.2% in 2018. MyEG was one of the worst-affected stocks post-May 9,2018 elections as its core business was providing e-government services. The founders of MyEG -Datuk Wong Thean Soon and Datuk Norraesah Mohamad - were riding high in the previous regime as they were supposed to roll out the tax monitoring system under the Goods and Services Tax regime.

New entrants to the top-40 billion-aires list are Selangor Properties Bhd managing director Wen Chiu Chi, the co-founder and major shareholder of Riverstone Holdings Bhd, Wong Teek Son and Yinson Holdings Bhd's Lim Han Weng.

Wen took over at the helm of SelProp following the passing of his mother in September last year while Wong of Riverstone is one of four among the top 40 who made their pile from the glove industry. Yinson's Lim made it to the list on the back of

the company forging ahead of other players in the floating production storage and offloading business.

The three out of the top 40 list are GD Express Bhd founder, Teong Teck Lean, Mah Sing Group's Tan Sri Leong Hoy Kum and Ann Joo Resources Bhd group executive chairman Datuk Lim Kiam Lam.

There are hardly any changes to the list of top 30 billionaires although their positions have moved up or down the list. For instance, Genting group's Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay has moved down three notches to fifth spot while Ananda is down to eighth.

By far, Robert Kuok of the Kuok group continues to be the richest man in Malaysia with a net worth of RM43.59bil. His business empire stretches from China to Australia and the tycoon hardly spends time in Malaysia.

Public Bank's founder Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow takes second spot with a net worth of RM25.28M while IOI Group's Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng is third in the list with a net worth of RM19.43bil.

The year 2018 belonged to glove manufacturers where four in the top 40 came from that sector. The four are Hartalega Bhd's chairman Kuan Kam Hon, Top Glove Bhd's Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai, Tan Sri Lim Kuang Sia of Kossan and Wong of Riverstone.

Top Glove's Lim and Hartalega's Kuan are among those who saw the biggest jump in their net worth due to the rise of prices of glove manufac-turers.

The biggest gainer is Tan Sri Chen Lip Keong who controls 65.8% of Hong Kong-listed Nagacorp Ltd. The Nagacorp group is the largest hotel, gaming and leisure operator in Cambodia. Chen's net worth increased by 41% to RM13.1bil as at end 2018.

Methodology The list is compiled by an inde-

pendent analyst based on the listed and disclosed shareholdings of indi-viduals.

It is based on the closing share price on Dec 31,2018. It does not take into account the borrowings or fund-ing costs of the individuals.

In the case of family companies where there is no information on the exact amount of shares held by the individual, the shareholding of his or her family members are combined together with the stake held by the individual.

The net worth is based on the per-son's effective interest in the group. It does not take into account the stakes held at subsidiary or associate levels, which strips out double-counting.

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 Top 40 Richest Wealth (RM bil) 268.1 290.5 235.7 225.3 222.8 Change (RM bil) ' - 22 .4 +54.8 +10.4 +2.5 +2.2 -% - 8 % +23% +5% +1% +1%

FMBKLCI (points) 1,691 1,797 1,642 1,693 1,761 Change - 6 % +9% - 3 % - 4 % -6%

1 1 ROBERT KUOK HOCK NIEN Kuok Group

43.59 49.91 (6.32) . (12.7)

2 3 TAN SRI TEH HONG PIOW Public Bank

25.28 21.55 3.72 17.3

3 4 TAN SRI LEE SHIN CHENG IOI Group

19.43 20.61 (1.18) (5.7)

4 6 TAN SRI LAU CHO KUN Hap Seng Group

18.20 17.60 0.60 3.4

5 2 TAN SRI LIM KOK THAY & FAMILY Genting Group

16.56 23.81 (7.25) (30.4)

6 7 TAN SRI QUEKLENG CHAN Hong Leong Group

15.18 15.94 (0.76) (4.8)

7 10 TAN SRI CHEN LIP KEONG 13.11 9.31 3.80 40.8 Nagacorp

8 .. 5 ANANDA KRISHNAN Maxis, Astro

12.77 20.4 (7.64) (37.4)

9 8 TAN SRI KOON POH KEONG & FAMILY Press Metal

12.17 13.07 (0.89) (6.8)

10 9 KUAN KAM HON & FAMILY Hartalega

10.86 9.71 1.16 11.9

11 11 TAN SRI FRANCIS YEOH & FAMILY YTL Group

6.93 9.22 (2.29) (24.8)

12 16 CHIA SONG KUN & FAMILY QL Resources

6.10 4.03 2.06 51.1

13 12 TAN SRI G. GNANALINGAM Westports

5.62 5.74 (0.13) (2.2)

14 18 TAN SRI LIM WEE CHAI Top Glove Group

5.25 •3.79 1.46 38.6

15 13 TAN SRI JEFFREY CHEAH Sunway Group

4.77 5.50 (0.74) (13.4)

16 15 TAN SRI LEE 01 HIAN & DATO' LEE HAU HIAN Batu Kawan, KLK

3.62 4.25 (0.63) (14.8)

17 21 TAN SRI NGAU BOON KEAT Dialog Group

3.51 2.88 0.63 21.9

18 17 TAN SRI TONY FERNANDES & DATUK KAMARUDIN MERANUN Air Asia Group

3.43 3.95 (0.52) (13.3)

19 14 TAN SRI SYED MOKHTARALBUKHARY MMC & DRB Group

3.15 5.25 (2.10) (40.0)

20 23 DATUK MOHD ABDUL KARIM, ABDUL KADIER & DATUK AWANG DAUD Serba Dinamik

2.96 2.50 0.46 .18.5

21 22 TAN SRI LIM KUANG SIA Kossan

2.86 2.66 0.20 7.5

22 25 TAN SRIAZMANHASHIM AmBank

2.58 2.45 0.13 5.3

23 29 LIM TECK MENG& FAMILY Scientex

2.47 2.34 0.13 5.6

24 30 KONG CHONG SOON & KONG PAK LIM UOA Group

2.41 2.34 0.07 2.9

25 31 DATUK TAN HENG CHEW Tan Chong Group

2.36 2.31 0.05 2.1

26 20 GOH PENGOOI Silverlake

2.24 2.99 (0.74) (24.9)

27 28 DATUK LOH KIAN CHONG Oriental

2.22 2.35 (0.13) (5.6)

28 26 f A N SRI VINCENT TAN Berjaya Group

2.15 2.43 (0.28) (11.5)

29 27 TAN SRI DESMOND LIM Pavilion, WCT

2.12 2.40 (0.28) (11.7)

30 32 DATUK SERI ROBERTTAN & TAN BOON SENG FAMILY IGB Group

1.75 2.11 (0.35) (16.8)

31 24 DATUK SERI CHEAH CHENG HAI Value Partners

1.65 2.47 (0.82) (33.3)

32 19 WONG THEAN SOON & DATUK NORRAESAH MOHAMAD MyEG Services

1.40 3.3.6 (1.95) (58.2)

33 - WEN CHIU CHI & FAMILY Selangor Properties

1.34 - 1.34 100.0

34 - WONG TEEK SON Riverstone (S'pore)

1.30 t - . 1.3 100.0

35 f. - . - LIM HAN WENG Yinson

1.30 - 1.30 100.0

36 34 DATUK TEE ENG HO Kerjaya Prospek

1.25 1.62 (0.37) (22.7)

37 37 TAN SRI ONG LEONG HUAT OSK Group

1.16 1.44 (0.28) (19.4)

38 33 DATUK LEONG KOK WAH EcoWorld Group

1.06 1.63 (0.57) (35.0)

39 35 YONG PANG CHAUN Padini

1.03 1.54 (0.52) (33.5)

40 39 GOOISEONG LIM & FAMILY Kim Loong, Crescendo

1.01 1.18 (0.17) (14.0)

- 1 3.85 (3.85) (100.0)

268.12 290.48 (22.36) (7.7)


MediaTitle The Star






Stories by JAGDEV SINGH SIDHU, GURMEET KAUR, B.K. SIDHU, HANIM ADNAN, YVONNE TAN, TEE LIN SAY, DALJIT DHESI and EUGENE MAHALINGAM

1. ROBERT KUOK Flagship: Kuok Group/Kerry Group Net worth: RM43.59bil

ROBERT Kuok is once again Malaysia's richest man with a net worth of RM43.59bil, despite a fall in his wealth by RM6.32bil from the previous year.

The 95-year-old, who is touted as one of Malaysia's most successful entrepreneurs who have grown their operations in China, controls businesses across Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. His family members and relatives run the most important of the Kuok businesses.

Kuok has controlling stakes in three list-ed companies in Malaysia - PPB Group Bhd, Malaysian Bulk Carriers Bhd (Maybulk) and Shangri-La Hotels (M) Bhd. PPB is a diversified company that is in plantations, food and also cinemas through Golden Screen Cinemas Sdn Bhd (GSC). Maybulk is a shipping line and Shangri-La Hotels is the No 1 hotel chain in the country. Across the causeway, he controls Wilmar International Ltd, which is the world's largest palm oil-based edible oil trader that had a market cap of S$19.97bil as at year-end. In Hong Kong, Kuok's wealth is primarily held via Kerry Group through a web of shareholding structures. Kerry Group has stakes in Shangri-La Asia, Kerry Properties and Kerry Logistics on the Hong Kong exchange. From the 1980s, Kerry Properties has developed large-scale prop-erties mainly in China and has total assets of HK$167.9bil currently.

While the businesses in Malaysia are a ' big part of his wealth, the bulk comes from Hong Kong and Singapore.

As opposed to Singapore where the Wilmar stock closed flat, Shangri-La Asia and Kerry Properties on the Hong Kong bourse shed one-third and one-fifth in market values last year.

In terms of corporate activities, Maybulk completed its offer for sale of its entire 21.23% stake in Singapore-listed PACC Offshore Services Holdings Ltd (POSH) to its own shareholders in September last year. The deal raised RM251mil in cash to pay for new vessels and cut down debts.

Before that in June, PPB, which owns GSC said it will spend RM300mil to expand and upgrade its cinema chain in the country. GSC has a 40% market share in Malaysia and the expansion will see it having a total of 348 screens in 36 locations.

Over at Singapore, Wilmar bought a 50% equity interest in Nauvu Investments Pte Ltd from Olam International Ltd for US$148mil. Subsequently Nauvu, which has interest in integrated palm oil, rubber and sugar assets in Africa, is a unit of Wilmar.

Wilmar also has a controlling 58.3% stake in Mumbai-based Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd after triggering a general offer early last year.

The company is India's largest sugar manufacturer.

It appears that Kuok has plans to spin off some subsidiaries for public listing if recent media reports are anything to go by.

One is by Wilmar, which is said to be in the process of spinning off its Chinese sub-sidiary to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The other is Kuok's Kerry Logistics, which reportedly is considering an initial public offering (IPO) of its Thai business that "could take place as soon as the first half of this year". The Bangkok IPO could raise US$200mil to US$300mil, a report quoting sources said.

3. TAN SRI LEE SHIN CHENG Flagship: IOI Group Net worth: RM19.43bil

IOI Corp Bhd, the flagship company of Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng, is an integrated plan-tation group with down-stream operations in refin-ery and oleo-chemicals. This has helped it weather 2018's commodity downcycle rela-tively better than its peers.

While its upstream busi-ness suffered in financial year 2018 due to the lower average selling price of crude palm oil, its down-stream benefited from lower raw material prices, which lifted downstream's earn-ings before interest and tax contribution to the group by more than one-third.

In 2018, crude palm oil prices had dropped to a three-year low of RM2,121 per tonne from a high of RM2,700 due to the current oversupply of palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The stock, which is seen as a sector bell-wether, ended the year at RM4.45 for a market cap of RM27.96bil.

Lee and family derived the bulk of their fortune from IOI Corp, in which they own 49.8%.

The company is one of the largest oil palm planters with about 174,000ha of oil palm area. Of this, 90% is located in Malaysia.

IOI Corp, in turn, owns 31.7% of Singapore-listed Bumitama Agri Ltd, a pro-ducer of palm oil and palm kernel. This produce are sold to refineries in Indonesia.

The tycoon also has interest in property and construction through 64.9%-owned

IOI Properties Group Bhd, which has diversi-fied into the Singapore and China markets.

The 80-year-old Lee runs the IOI group with his two sons. The older of the two, Datuk Lee Yeow Chor, helms the plantation business, while Lee Yeow Seng heads properties.

Last year, IOI Corp sold its 70% stake in IOI-Loders Croklaan for US$946mil (RM4bil), of which RM2bil has been utilised to pare down its debts.

With this disposal, it is now in a much stronger financial position with a lower net debt of RM5.3bil, which translated to a decent net gearing of 29% as at end-De-cember 2018. Going forward, it plans to further expand its upstream operations.

As for property, IOI Properties has a strategy to grow its presence in Singapore and China.

In Singapore, IOI Properties plans to fast-track its development on the land it bought in Marina Bay for S$2.57bil in late 2016.

This follows the imposition of a sev-en-year deadline on companies to com-plete projects which have been successful-ly tendered for.

In China, meanwhile, it has embarked on two mixed property developments and still has projects with a gross development value of 4.6 billion yuan to be launched.

Lee saw a slight dip in his worth to RM19.43bil, but it is enough to propel the tycoon to the number three spot in the rankings list.

2. TAN SRI TEH HONG PIOW Flagship: Public Bank Bhd Net worth: RM25.28bil

TAN Sri Teh Hong Piow of Public Bank Bhd has emerged as the country's second richest backed by a 19.5% increase in the shares of the bank. The stock, a consistent performer on Bursa Malaysia with high dividend payouts year after year, closed at RM24.76 as of Dec 31 for a market cap of RM96.1bil - making it the sec-ond-most valuable banking stock after Malayan Banking Bhd.

The 89-year-old banker's 23.4% stake in the bank, which he founded in 1966, is worth RM22.48bil.

Besides Public Bank, Teh also owns a 44.2% stake in insurance company LPI Capital Bhd, which was valued at RM6.27bil as at the end of last year.

These stakes collectively put his worth at RM25.3bil, up 17.3% or RM3.7bil from 2017's wealth count.

Teh, who officially retired as non-executive chairman of the bank last year, can look back at the bank and feel fulfilled. While he remains on the board as chairman emeritus and adviser, 2019 marks a new era for Public Bank that is now

professionally run. How its management would

ride through the more challenging economic climate ahead would be closely watched by all.

Not many can match the veter-an banker's achievement of steer-ing the bank with unbroken profit-ability over five decades even dur-ing ail the financial crises.

At 2.32 times price-to-book value, the bank is among the most expensive in the region.

The premium it commands is largely due to the high returns it

has given to its shareholders on a consistent basis.

It is also one of the most efficient in the indus-try with a cost-to-income ratio of just 33%.

Public Bank is predominantly a retail bank, so any slowdown in domestic consumption would affect its loan growth, while stiff competition in the deposit space could lead to a larger-than-ex-pected compression in overall margins, say ana-lysts.

For the financial year ended Dec 31,2018 (FY18), Public Bank posted a net profit of RM5.6bil.

It achieved a healthy loan growth of 4.2% in 2018 but for this year, the bank says it is expect-ing loan growth to come in at the lower end of its targeted 4%-5% range.

4. TAN SRI LAU CHO KUN Flagship: Hap Seng Group Net worth: RM18.20bil

SABAH tycoon Tan Sri Lau Cho Kun has interests in several companies listed on Bursa Malaysia, led by Hap Seng Consolidated Bhd. Hap Seng Consolidated's market cap stood at RM24.52bil based on its share price of RM9.85 as at December 2018.

Lau controls a 73.9% block in Hap Seng Consolidated through private-ly-held Gek Poh (Holdings) Sdn Bhd and Lei Shing Hong Investment Sdn Bhd (LSHI). He is the nephew of the late Tan Sri Lau Gek Poh, the maver-ick businessman who founded the group.

The group controls 53% of palm oil producer, Hap Seng Plantations Bhd, and is the second-larg-est shareholder in soap manufacturer Paos Holdings Bhd with a 25% stake.

It is a significant Mercedes-Benz passenger car dealer, commanding a 40% market share. It is also involved in credit financing, quarry and building materials and the fertiliser business.

Despite the family's controlling stake, profes-sional managers have been brought in to run the show at the various companies.

Elsewhere, Lau is a substantial shareholder in Borneo Oil Bhd with a 5.1% stake.

Going by recent corporate exercises by the

group, it would appear that Lau has a strategy to expand opera-tions in the country.

In the last two years, Hap Seng has raised RM2.8bil f rom selling some of its key assets to Lau's private vehicle LSHI. The proceeds went to partially pare down debts and fund the group's operations in some of its key business divisions.

This include, among others, funding its money lending busi-ness and planned integrated mixed development project within the KL Metropolis devel-opment located along Jalan Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.

The group had also acquired tile manufacturer Malaysian Mosaics Sdn Bhd from Gek Poh Holdings to complement its property business.

Last year, Bloomberg reported quoting sources that Lei Shing Hong Ltd, which runs Mercedes-Benz dealerships in Asia and Europe, was plan-ning to relist in Hong Kong in a deal that could raise around US$800mil.

The company was taken private a decade ago in a deal valuing it at US$l»4bil then.

Lei Shing Hong rims Mercedes-Benz dealer-ships in mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Vietnam and Cambodia. It also sells Porsche vehi-cles in South Korea.

5. TAN SRI LIM KOK THAY Flagship: Genting Group Net worth RM16.56bil

THE dice was not in favour of Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay and family, who saw a 30% or RM7.3bil drop in their wealth count last year. At RM16.56bil, Kok Thay was ranked fifth richest, down three notches from 2017's ranking.

Shares of Genting Malaysia Bhd and its parent company Genting Bhd came under pressure in the second half of last year after a spate of bad news hit sentiment on the stocks.

One was the unexpected hike in the casino tax by 10% to 35%, effective Jan 1,2019. Secondly was uncertainty on the opening date of its outdoor theme park, which is the subject of Genting's legal suit against Disney and Twenty-First Century Fox.

The new theme park based on the 20th Century Fox World design was supposed to boost the number of visitors to Genting Highlands resort for the next two years from June 2019.

The run of bad luck saw shares of Genting plunging 32% from RM8.70 to RM5.91, erasing RM9bil in value.

As for Genting Malaysia, the loss in value was larger at RM12.85biI or by 42%. The stock ended the year at RM2.77 from RM5.16.

The company closed FY18 in the red, its first loss-making one since 2000 on higher impair-ment losses of RM1.8bil.

Business-wise, the Genting group is still a for-midable one with listed entities in Singapore,

Hong Kong, the Philippines and US Nasdaq.

Under Kok Thay's stewardship, the group transformed from a one-hill casino founded by the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, to an international gaming and enter-tainment wonder.

The group derives consistent cashflow from its casino opera-tions in Malaysia and Singapore, but is now building its cruise ship business and expanding its casino operations in Las Vegas.

It is also cash-rich, sitting on RM8.8bil of cash. This puts it in a strong financial position to tender for new gaming jurisdictions in

countries like Japan and Macau. Besides gaming, the Genting group has interest

in plantations via listed Genting Plantations Bhd and exposure to the power and oil and gas sectors.

From this year, Kok Thay's son Lim Keong Hui has been appointed deputy CEO of Genting, Genting Malaysia, and Genting Plantations -marking the third generation in the empire. Observers do not discount more executive roles given to the 34-year old Keong Hui as he is seen being groomed as the third generation successor of the Lim family.

However, an ongoing family feud is casting a cloud over the Genting empire.

The dispute over a family trust that Goh Tong had created, one of several created as corporate vehicles for the family inheritance, has spawned other legal battles.


MediaTitle The Star






6. TAN SRI QUEK LENG CHAN Flagship: Hong Leong Group Net worth: RM15.2bil

OFTEN seen as a businessman with his hands in many different and successful port-folios, Quek, 77, saw his net worth drop by RM800mil or 5% to RM15.2bil in 2018.

The key pillars of his successful swathe of companies last year were his banking and property companies, which saw him benefit from stable income from Hong Leong Bank and also growth potential from expansion of the property businesses in Singapore and China.

His stable of 17 hotels in London with 5,000 rooms on offer was another stabilising factor in a year that was tumultuous for many of the richest men in the country.

With fourth-ranked Hong Leong Bank in the Malaysian banking industry looking at a 5% loan growth this year, Quek's Bank of East Asia Ltd has one of the largest banking networks in Hong Kong and China. It is the third-largest bank in Hong Kong.

His Guocoland Singapore will provide growth by having acquired four blocks of land worth S$3.4bil over the past two years. In China, the group is looking to develop mixed-development projects that will have a floor area of 5.5 million sq ft.

Quek has a sprawling manufacturing empire that touches on consumer products such as tiles and motorcycles, and industrial products such as cement and semiconduc-tors. His steel operations are conducted through Southern Steel Bhd and in Lam Soon (HK) Ltd, the group is involved in edi-

ble oils, flour and home-care products. His business empire also spans the UK by

virtue of an investment in Rank Group that is a listed casino operator in London.

One thing that is apparent within his busi-ness empire is that Quek has initiated a sue- _ cession planning programme. He has since 2016 stepped down as chairman in four com-panies. His brother Kwek Leng Hai has assumed the reins at Guoco Group and GL Ltd and may be planning to have his other younger siblings and children take over the responsibility of running companies throughout his companies in the UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

7. TAN SRI DR CHEN LIP KEONG Flagship: NagaCorp Ltd Net worth: RM13.11bil

THE 71-year-old billionaire medical doctor has overseen his business empire flourish-ing, thanks to the burgeoning casino opera-tions in Cambodia. Climbing fast up the rankings from 10th last year, the 41% increase or RM3.8bil rise in his net worth to RM13.1bil was down to the robust growth in his Cambodian casino operations. NagaCorp Ltd, listed in Hong Kong, is the largest hotel, gaming and leisure operator in Cambodia.

Its property NagaWorld is Phnom Penh's only integrated hotel-casino entertainment complex. The site has 1,700 guest rooms, 600 gaming tables and more than 5,000 gaming machines.

It holds a 70-year casino licence in Cambodia that runs until 2065 and has a monopoly within a 200-km radius of Phnom Penh except for the Cambodia-Vietnam bor-der area, Bokor, Kirirom Mountain and Sihanoukville until 2035.

The prized asset of his empire is NagaCorp, which has been bolstered by the opening of Naga 2. Located adjacent to Naga World, this allowed NagaCorp to almost double its gaming capacity and revenue and earnings are expected to follow suit from 2018 onwards. In the first half of last year, NagaCorp saw an 83% growth in revenue to US$733mil from US$402mil in the same peri-od a year earlier.

Chen's company has Naga 3 in the plan-ning stage and its Russia gaming project is expected to open for operations later this

year. Its Russia venture is under the name Primorsky Entertainment Resort City and Chen's company is expected to make an investment of no less than US$350mil in the development of the resort in Russia.

The driver of growth was mainly from the large influx of visitors from China to its resorts and the contribution from VIP high-rollers from China.

With Naga 3 being planned, Chen has relo-cated to Phnom Penh to better manage the group's operations.

Chen's other companies are based in Malaysia and they are FACB Industries Incorporated Bhd and Karambunai Corp Bhd. He delisted Petaling Tin from Bursa Malaysia last year.

8. T. ANANDA KRISHNAN Flagship: Maxis, Astro Net worth: RM12.77bil

T ANANDA Krishnan, or AK as people refer him to, was the biggest loser in the top-10 richest Malaysians last year. He lost RM7.6bil in one year, which was a decline of 37% in his net worth. That amount alone would have placed anyone in the 11th spot on the top-40 list.

It is an understatement to say that AK had a very bad year, but his mainstays on Bursa Malaysia performed on varying degrees. Maxis Bhd, Malaysia's leading cellular com-pany, had a stable year. Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd's share price succumbed to a declining subscriber base and Bumi Armada Bhd saw a big plunge in its value on con-cerns over its mountain of debt and the ongoing resolution with its bondholders.

What AK has going in Maxis and Astro are their market-leading positions, but there is a need to redefine their business models, as all three key companies, including Bumi Armada, are facing regulatory challenges and tough market conditions.

As a result of the confluence of factors, the market capitalisation of Maxis, Astro and Bumi Armada fell to RM49.5bil at the end of last year from RM65.2bil at the end of 2017, a drop of 24%. One failure of AK in recent years has been the failed diversification of Malaysian businesses into overseas markets.

The souring of a relationship with the Lippo Group from Indonesia meant that it could not successfully venture into the prop-erty business in Singapore through Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd in 2006. AK's Usaha Tegas Sdn Bhd was bought out by Lippo in 2010 for the Indonesian company to take full

control of the Singaporean developer. The other bitter pill with Lippo was the

venture in the Indonesian cable TV business and it has been suggested that the fallout between AK and Riady of the Lippo group was the sale of a controlling block in Natrindo to Saudi Telecom after just two months from buying Lippo's 44% stake in the Indonesian telco.

AK was also beset with a huge loss from the failed telco investment in Aircel Ltd in India which has filed for bankruptcy due to the cutthroat business in India. The one bit of good news for AK last year was the sale of the indoor Tropical Islands Resort to a com-pany from Spain for RM1.07bil. The resort was developed and opened for business in 2004 at a cost of RM600mil.

Another setback for AK was the departure of key employees Ralph Marshall and Datuk Rohana Rozhan. Both had been long-term lieutenants for AK in his business empire.

10.KUAN KAM HON AND FAMILY Flagship: Hartalega Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM10.86bil

THE founder of Hartalega, Kuan Kam Hon, is a self-made man. Seeing the opportunity that synthetic gloves can have in terms of combating the protein allergy issue from latex gloves, he developed a type of rubber glove called the nitrile glove. There was much scep-ticism on how he would invoke a shift in demand to the type of gloves he was producing, but today, Hartalega is the largest glove company in the world by market capitalisation.

Kuan's Hartalega is today the world's largest nitrile glove company capable of making 30 billion glove pieces a year. His attention to productivity and technology means he uses far fewer production lines to produce his gloves,

9. TAN SRI KOON POH KEONG AND FAMILY Flagship: Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM12.17bil

KOON and his family have been a steady path in the top-10 richest people in the coun-try, thanks to the success of Press Metal, an aluminium company that has profited great-ly from its ability to secure cheap power from the dams that were built in Sarawak.

It inked a supply contract with Sarawak Energy Bhd for 25 years back in 2012 and with hydroelectric energy in abundance in Sarawak the company benefited by having arguably the cheapest source of power avail-able in Malaysia and on a long-term basis.

With electricity a key cost component in the aluminium business, Press Metal's two smelting plants in Malaysia use 1.200MW of power a day. These two plants in Sarawak consume about 25% of the capacity of power in the state.

Its Samalaju plant smelts 640,000 tonnes a year and its Mukah plant 120,000 tonnes a year. It is contemplating building a fourth plant in Samalaju to expand its smelting capacity, but is facing serious competition to get more power from Sarawak Energy due to demand from other heavy industries. The company hopes that the 1,285MW Baleh Dam built by Sarawak Energy can bridge the demand gap by 2025.

Koon's Press Metal too has extrusion plants in Guangzhou and Kapar that have a capacity of a combined 160,000 tonnes.

The availability of cheap and abundant power has allowed Koon and Press Metal to grow from a privately-owned local alumini-um company in 1986 to a global integrated

which in turn gives him superior profit margins compared with his competi-tors.

Hartalega operates from two main sites: five plants in Bestari Jaya span-, ning 37 acres and seven plants in Sepang called the Hartalega Next-Generation Complex compassing 12 acres. They have 127 production lines in total that are designed in-house, cus-tom built and have cutting-edge tech-nologies to serve the global market with speed, efficiency and quality.

The next-generation plan in Sepang will also see the final plant seven being built soon, following the commission-ing of plant six. Once the latest plant is up and running, Hartalega will have a combined production capacity of 44.6 billion pieces a year.

But for Kuan, his company is work-ing on the next generation of gloves

that may have a bigger impact than the nitrile gloves. Hartalega has launched its latest innovation, the world's first non-leaching antimicrobial glove. The glove will help reduce the incidences of healthcare-associated infections in hos-pitals, which until today, is a big prob-lem for medical practitioners.

While overcapacity in the rubber gloves business, weakening US dollar against the ringgit, lower barriers of entry, and higher raw material and labour costs are issues for the industry, Hartalega's production process is said to be different than others.

Its use of more technology gives it higher margins and lower labour costs. Furthermore, its new antimicrobial gloves is in the process of meeting international approvals that would be a huge game changer for the company and also the industry.

aluminium company today, with it being the largest aluminium producer in South-East Asia.

To ensure the stability of the product, Press Metal also bought a 50% stake in Japan Alumina Associates (Australia) Pty Ltd for A$250mil, giving it access to one of the world's largest, longest-life and lowest-cost alumina producers.


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11. TAN SRI FRANCIS YEOH AND FAMILY Flagship: YTL Group Net worth: RM6.93bil

THE Yeoh family maintains its 11th spot on the top 40 richest list, despite its net wealth declin-ing by RM2.3bil or 25% in 2018.

Tan Sri Francis Yeoh helms YTL Corp Bhd, a diversified con-glomerate, which was founded by his father, the late Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay.

YTL Corp together with its listed entities, YTL Power International Bhd, YTL Land & Development Bhd and YTL Hospitality REIT, has a combined market capitalisation of about RM19.2bU as at Dec 31, 2018.

In recent years, the progress of the diversi-fied business empire can be described as "lacklustre".

In Malaysia, the group suffered a loss of income from the expiry of a 21-year power purchasing concession for YTL Power in 2016. It is the nation's first independent power producer with two power plants in Paka and Pasir Gudang with a combined capacity of 1,212MW.

But under a short-term capacity bid called by the Malaysian Energy Commission, YTL Power has been able to supply from its Paka power station from Sept 1,2017 onwards under the new power purchase agreement entered with Tenaga Nasional Bhd for the supply of 585MW of capacity for a term of three years and 10 months until June 30, 2021.

YTL's unit in Singapore, PowerSeraya Ltd is also facing tough market conditions due to massive overcapacity. The lone profitable

power generation company saw its profit after tax plunge 89% since 2013 to a low of S$25.3mil in 2016 although this recovered to S$41mil in 2017.

And for the first time in the first quarter 2019, PowerSeraya chalked up losses due to a lower vesting contract level, lower retail non-fuel and tank leasing margin. >

Despite these setbacks, the YTL Group is currently pin-suing

the completion of two new power projects in Jordan and Indonesia.

The group's cement business is also affect-ed by the prolonged cementprice war amid overcapacity and subdued demand. The gloomy outlook is dampened by the new government's pledge to review mega infra-structure projects that has led to delays or cancellations. Cement, which contributes about 16% to the group's revenue, is expect-ed to continue to decline due to overcapacity and weak cement prices.

In construction, save for the group's two mega projects - the Gemas JB project and Tanjung Jati power plant in Indonesia -secured recently, the outlook remains sub-dued and lacklustre.

Similarly, there are currently no major launches or large scale property develop-ment by YTL Land & Development, despite the group owning over 2,000 acres of strate-gic land bank in Malaysia.

The hotels, resorts and REITs businesses will continue to provide the group with sta-ble and consistent yields with no major growth expected.

As at Sept 30, 2018, YTL Corp had a net debt of RM28.3bil.

13. TAN SRI G. GNANALINGAM Flagship: Westport Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM5.62bil

GNANALINGAM has moved one spot down to the 13th position as his net wealth declined by RM130mil or 2%.

He chairs Westport Holdings, a multi-cargo operator, which owns a 60-year concession to operate and expand its container terminals in Pulau Indah and Port Klang, which will end in 2054. Westports is one of the three main port operators in the Straits of Malacca that handle gateway and transhipment container cargo.

His son Ruben Emir Gnanalingam is Westports' managing director.

Westports commands a 75% share of the container volume in Port Klang. It has 30 berths, 6.2 million transhipment containers and 2.8 million gateway containers.

Its recent container terminal (CT) expan-sion of CT 8 and CT 9 saw the port's average handling capacity stand at 13 million TEUs per annum. It is also well poised to become the preferred port for local boxes within the next five years. The average capacity utilisa-tion ratio is at 69% in 2017.

The country's largest port operator is also pursuing further expansion of CT10 to CT19, which is still under the planning stage.

Upon implementation, the terminal han-dling capacity is expected to increase to 30 million TEUs possibly by 2040.

Last year, Westports has entered into an agreement with Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor for the acquisition of 154.2ha leasehold land below the sea in Pulau Indah for RM116.2mil.

As a transhipment port, it is well connected to over 350 ports worldwide providing effi-cient global and regional connectivity along major trade routes. It handles 6.2 million TEUs, accounting for &1% of transhipment volume in Port Klang recorded in 2017.

Its strategic location had also ensured sta-ble growth of import and export cargo, attractive base load of demand for shipping lines calling at Port Klang as a preferred gate-way port.

In 2017, Westports handled 2.8 million TEUs container gateway cargo which repre-sents 64% of Port Klang gateway TEUs and the largest gateway container TEUs handled in Malaysia.

IS. TAN SRI JEFFREY CHEAH Flagship: Sunway Bhd Net worth: RM4.77bil

THE wealth of Sunway Group's founder and executive chairman dropped by RM740mil or 13.4% putting him lower at 15th spot on the list in 2018 from 13th in 2017.

Cheah is one of the few tycoons in the property and construction sector, who has managed to scrape through the ongoing bearish sentiment, especially post-general election 2018, despite many construction projects having to defer or cancelled.

Sunway Group is one of Malaysia's largest conglomerates with core interests in proper-ty, construction, education and healthcare. The group has three public-listed companies, namely Sunway Bhd, Sunway Construction Bhd (SunCon) and Sunway REIT with a com-bined market capitalisation of about RM17bil.

Moving forward, Sunway Group is expect-ed to take on more property development rojects in the Klang Valley and Singapore. The group is still very active in acquiring rge tracts of land bank with the recent cus shifting to Singapore as Malaysia's

roperty market is facing a slowdown. In Malaysia, the group acquired 37.4 acres

at RM586.7mil in 2017 with a gross development value of RM5.5bil, while in Singapore, the group is focusing on its prop-erty projects in Tampines, Sembawang and Brookvale Park.

Sunway's largest integrated township development, Iskandar Johor Baru, struggled to take off successfully due to lack of buy-ers' interest and the condomini-um glut in Johor.

Sunway is also dipping into its REITs kitty by selling some of its key assets to Sunway REITs to raise funds after its recent aggressive land acquisitions.

The debt position of Sunway Bhd (excluding Sunway REITs) has risen by RM0.62bil or -19% to RM3.95bil as at September 2018 from RM3.33bil in December 2016. Its net gearing is at 0.4 times, which is still deemed manageable.

In Singapore, the group is going big time into the property development market, bid-ding for major tenders and acquisitions of prime residential land together with its joint-venture partner Ho Hup Realty Pte Ltd.

Its unit SunCon has also achieved its new contract target of RMl.Sbil in 2018 and expects to secure another RMl.Sbil this year.

While the construction sector outlook remains challenging, SunCon's remaining order book of RM5.2bil provides good earn-ings visibility.

12. CHIA SONG KUN AND FAMILY Flagship: QL Resources Bhd Net worth: RM6.1bil

THE earnings of the Chia family soared by RM2.1bil or 51.1% in 2018, placing the family four notches higher at 12th position on the list compared with 16 in 2017.

Led by Chia Song Kun, QL Resources has propelled from a local feedstuff trader to a reputable multina-tional agro-food corporation. It operates three core businesses, integrated livestock farming, marine products manufacturing and palm oil activities as well as one sub-sec-tor, the FamilyMart franchise.

The success of QL and its businesses lies in the group's replication strategy, which involves the deployment of technology, capi-talandmanagement expertise into populous emerging markets. Even though QL operates and supplies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, its market penetration is trans-continental.

Organic growth and a series of strategic acquisitions has driven QL's rise to become one of Malaysia's leading operators in ani-mal feed raw materials and poultry farming. Currently, the building of a new integrated layer farm in Raub is undergoing expansion to enlarge capacity by 30% to 650,000 eggs per day. This extension will increase the investment cost to RM70mil from the allocat-ed RMSOmil.

W m QL is also the largest producer of surimi in Asia as well as the largest fish meal and surimi-based prod-ucts manufacturer in Malaysia. With the expansion of its Hutan Melintang marine unit in Perak, works for new chilled surimi-based product plant and frozen products factories were completed by March last year at a RMlOOmil invest-ment.

With the new plants, the capacity for chilled surimi-based products

have doubled to 25,000 tonnes per year while frozen products will see an increase to 35,000 tonnes per year.

On the palm oil activities front, QL is the leading independent crude palm oil miller in Sabah.

It has a l,200ha matured oil palm estate in Sabah and also a 20,000ha oil palm planta-tion in East Kalimantan of which 5,000ha are mature.

As for its FamilyMart convenience store chain, the group aims to hit 89 stores by end of this month with the opening of an addi-tional 50 stores.

Market valuations-wise for QL remained high with a price to earnings at above 50 times. All the three core operations are expected to grow at stable and healthy rates of 5%-8% supported by among others, the new surimi plants, the expanded poultry layer unit and feed mills in Vietnam, 60% prime age palm palm profile with 15% growth in fresh fruit bunch yields as well as the opening of more new FamilyMart stores.

14. TAN SRI LIM WEE CHAI Flagship: Top Glove Corp Bhd Net worth: RM5.25bil

LIM, the founder and executive chairman of Top Glove, saw his net worth surging by 38.6% or RM1.5bil, moving up four notch-es to 14th spot on the list of 40 richest Malaysians in 2018.

Thanks to his aggressive busi-ness strategy by ramping up with more factories, the market valuation for Top Glove remains high at price-to-earnings (PE) of 30 times.

Financially, the company has been regis-tering steady growth with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.1% in reve-nue and 20.9% for profit after tax over the past 17 years.

Top Glove continues to dominate as the world's largest rubber glove manufacturer producing 60.5 billion gloves per year with 40 factories and 648 production lines and serves a network of over 2,000 customers in over 195 countries.

For the next two years, Top Glove is already embarking to add two factories in Malaysia producing 9.6 billion pieces of gloves as well as two factories in Thailand and Vietnam to produce 5.2 billion pieces of gloves for a total of 14.8 billion pieces or 25% additional new capacity.

By end-2020, the Group is poised to pro-

duce a whopping 75.3 billion pieces of rubber gloves per year.

Top Glove has also set its next level goals including increasing its world market share to 30% by 2020 and becoming a Fortune Global 500 Company by 2040.

It is also aggressively expand-ing its business scope and on the lookout for mergers and acquisi-tions opportunities in related industries.

As part of its expansion pur-suit, the group has acquired the entire stake of printing and packaging supplier Eastern

Press Sdn Bhd for RM46.3mil cash in 2017. It also made major acquisitions in 2018

namely a 100% stake in surgical glove maker Aspion Sdn Bhd for RM1.37bil, an 85% stake in latex-based product maker Duramedical Sdn Bhd for RM2.85mil and had allocated an initial investment of RM75mil for the first phase of its condom production.

Among the highlights on Top Glove in 2018 include the discovery of irregularities in certain Aspion balance sheet items, in particular its inventories, plant and machin-ery and the overvaluation of the acquisition price of Aspion as well as the removal of Low Chin Guan as executive director of Top Glove.

Low is a director of Aspion as well as managing director of Adventa Capital Pte Ltd, the former parent company of Aspion.

16. TAN SRI LEE OI HIAN & DATUK LEE HAU HIAN Flagship: Batu Kawan Bhd, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK) Net worth: RM3.62bil

BROTHERS Oi Hian and Hau Hian saw their wealth shrink last year due to volatile crude palm oil (CPO) prices.

From the 15th spot in 2017, their wealth dipped by nearly 15% to RM3.62bil from RM4.25bil a year earlier.

Much has to do with the oversupply situ-ation of CPO in the market place and the sluggish export demand. The European Union ban on palm oil products does not bode well for the industry.

But experts are predicting CPO prices will stabilise this year. The forecast of CPO for 2019 is at RM2.280 per tonne and RM2.350 for 2020.

All this had put a strain on their earnings last year.

But KLK is one of the largest plantation companies in the country.

The Lee brothers are more known for their interest in KLK than the parent com-pany Batu Kawan. They are the sons of the

late founder Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng. It was in 1992 that Batu Kawan sold all

its plantation assets to KLK in exchange for shares.

They control 50.3% of Batu Kawan, which, in turn, owns 46.6% of KLK.

Oi Hian, 67, is the non-executive chair-man of Batu Kawan and chief executive officer of KLK. The 65-year-old Hau Hian is Batu Kawan's managing director and non-executive director of KLK.

Often Batu Kawan is seen as a cheap proxy to KLK. Its stake in KLK is worth more than double its own market capitali-sation of RM7.4bil. Based on Friday's clos-ing KLK market capitalisation was at RM25.9bil.

KLK has also diversified into a resource-based manufacturer of oleo-chemical, derivatives and specialty chemicals. It has also vertically integrated its upstream and downstream businesses. It is also into prop-erty development by capitalising on its stra-tegic land banks.

For full financial year 2018, KLK reported a 25.1% drop in net profit to RM753.3mil from RMl.Olbil in FY17, while revenue fell 12.4% to RM18.4bil from RM21bil.


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17. TAN SRI NGAU BOON KEAT Flagship: Dialog Group Net worth: RM3.51bil

NGAU'S fortunes rose by nearly 22% last year amid challenging times faced by the oil and gas sector.

His net worth was higher at RM3.51bil last year from RM2.88bil a year earlier. With that he becomes the 17th richest Malaysian from the 21st spot earlier.

At 70, he is still actively steering Dialog Group, a company which he co-founded and is now the executive chairman.

He has a 20% stake in Dialog. Dialog Group is an oil and gas services pro-

vider that specialises in storage-tank termi-nals, engineering services and crude refining.

It also is a top pick among the oil and gas sector companies of some research houses. Of the 15 analysts covering this stock as com-piled by Bloomberg, ten have a "buy call.

They like the "recurring income business model and earnings visibility. It has a strong track record of taking calculated and rewarding risks."

"Dialog remains a secular growth story with the ability to scale up its terminal oper-ations via its Pengerang/Langsat and poten-tially overseas ventures while still managing its financials well," according to an analyst.

For the full year ended June 30,2018, Dialog's net profit grew to RM510.3mil from RM370.64mil a year earlier. Revenue dipped to RM3.11bil from RM3.39bil a year earlier.

Dialog has a market capitalisa-tion of RM17.94bil and its share price is trading at RM3.18 a share.

Over the next two years, main-tenance activities in the oil and gas space are expected to rise, so is cost pressure, reports have said.

With that background, Dialog will focus on diversifying across the value chain with regard to its

oil and gas business to reduce earnings vola-tility. It will continue to work towards inte-grating the upstream-midstream-down-stream aspects of its oil and gas businesses, said a report.

The underlying rationale for that is to reduce earnings cyclically in the context of pursuing structural growth, as a cyclical upswing in one sector can offset a cyclical downswing elsewhere, says an analyst report.

Ngau, an engineer by profession, is very much the face of Dialog.

He was also one of those who negotiated the first production sharing contract (PSC) way back in 1974. A report said the sealing of that contract helped change the course of the oil and gas industry in Malaysia.

Ngau is also said to be a philanthropist at heart. He set up MyKasih Foundation, a non-profit organisation, which helps less-for-tunate Malaysians in terms of food aid, health awareness, financial literacy pro-grammes, children's education and even skills training programs, a report says.

19. TAN SRI SYED MOKHTAR ALBUKHARY Flagship: MMC Corp Bhd Net Worth: RM3.15bil

YET another tycoon to see a dip in his for-tunes is Syed Mokhtar, known for having his hands in many businesses. These range from logistics to utilities to engineering and con-struction. Syed Mokhtar's net worth stood at RM5.25bil in 2017. Notably, 2017 was also the year in which the reclusive tycoon dropped out of the top-10 richest list, even as his net worth strengthened by nearly 7% year-on-year.

Though his flagship MMC, Syed Mokhtar has a vast exposure to ports, logistics, con-struction and engineering. He also controls DRB-Hicom Bhd, which made headlines in 2017 when it sold a 49.9% stake in Malaysian car-maker Proton to Chinese auto group Zhejiang Geely.

Through MMC, Syed Mokhtar also has sig-nificant stakes in power producer Malakoff, energy firm Gas Malaysia and Pos Malaysia.

Touted as the most successful Bumiputera entrepreneur, considering his vast business empire, Syed Mokhtar faces challenges as most of his businesses are affected by the gen-eral business slowdown.

Generally, shares of Syed Mokhtar's infra-structure-linked firms fell amidst an ongoing review of Malaysia's mega-infrastructure pro-jects.

The group's main construction business is run through the MMC-Gamuda joint venture. However, all is not lost as late last year, the Ministry of Finance said that MMC-Gamuda would continue the Mass Rail Transit Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya Line (MRT2) project with cost reductions for the underground

works. The decision was made after the final round

negotiations which resulted in MMC-Gamuda agreeing to increase the cost reductions of the underground works to RM3.6bil from RM2.13bil.

Notably also, MMC posted full year FY2018 profits which exceeded consensus estimates. Its construction revenue surged 56% due to higher work progress for the Klang Valley MRT Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya (KVMRT-SSP) Line.

RHB Research which has a buy call on the stock, expects a better FY2019, with earnings visibility for its construction division secured for the next three years, while a full year con-tribution from Penang Port, acquired in May 2018, will boost the ports and logistics divi-sion.

The research house also reckons MMC to be an undervalued stock with strong earnings growth. For example, it pointed out that MMC's ownership in Malakoff and Gas Malaysia combined is already worth RM2.84bil or 85 sen per MMC share. Combined with Senai Airport's value - esti-mated at RM836mil or 27 sen per MMC share - these three assets are already worth RM1.12 per share. Hence it notes that effectively, the current market price of RM1.05 is pricing zero value for all other MMC assets, with the most obvious mispricing is for MMC's ports opera-tions, which have been generating steady earnings historically. Meanwhile for Proton, Geely was selected as DRBHicom's strategic partner following an intensive vetting process which included 23 global automotive players. Geely now says that it has raised its 10-year projection for the sale of Proton cars by over 100% to one million units.

21. TAN SRI LIM KUANG SIA Flagship: Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd Net worth: RM2.9bil

FOR the full year ended Dec 31,2018 (FY18), glove maker Kossan recorded its highest-ev-er revenue, surpassing the RM2bil-mark to RM2.14bil, an increase of 9.5% from the pre-vious year.

The performance, the group noted, was achieved despite the increase in natural gas and nitrile prices, as well as the less-than-fa-vourable US dollar/ringgit exchange rate.

Backed by this, Kossan founder Tan Sri Lim Kuang Sia, 67, marched up one rung to secure the position of 21st richest man in Malaysia in 2018.

In 2017, he was ranked 22nd with a net worth of RM2.66bil.

In 2016, Kuang Sia was ranked as the 25th richest person in the country with a net worth of RM2bil.

His family members - Kuang Wang, Kuang Yong, Kwan Hwa and Leng Bung - are major shareholders of the group via Kossan Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, which has a 51.1%

18. TAN SRI TONY FERN ANDES & DATUK KAMARUDIN MERANUN Flagship: AirAsia Group Net worth: RM3.43bil

RIDING on the fintech revolution, Fernandes and his buddy, Kamarudin recently launched BigPay, an e-wallet and a accompanying prepaid card ser-vice.

/The flamboyant Fernandes is hoping this new business will be worth more than his airline, AirAsia.

Nearly two decades ago, this insepa-rable duo bought over the then trou-bled AirAsia for RM1. They turned it around and revolutionised air travel in Asia. Today the carrier is Asia's biggest low-cost carrier.

Riding on the low-cost model of being lean, simple and efficient, AirAsia caters to the growing affluent in Asia. It has the depth in network and frequency, flies 293 routes of which 90 are unique routes.

It continues to innovate to boost its ancil-lary income. The Malaysian operations con-tinues to be its star contributor and for 2018 the ancillary income just from this opera-tions reached RM1.49bil.

Last year the airline went on a massive cash raising exercise by offering sale and leaseback arrangements for its 104 planes in a US$1.9bi deal. This helped turned the air-line from a net debt position to net cash of RM2.11bil as at end September, 2018.

Apart from that, the airline group sold other non-core assets in the year. It raised huge cash and rewarded shareholders with dividends, including a special dividend total-ling 52 sen a share for the full year. AirAsia reported RM1.98bil in net profit for full year 2018 from RM1.63bil a year earlier.

The sale and leaseback arrangements will continue into this year.

AirAsia has airline operations in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and

m India. It plans to begin services from Vietnam in August this year. China remains on its radar as it hopes to set up an airline there.

Both Fernandes (group CEO of AirAsia Group) and Kamarudin (non-executive chair-man) control three listed companies -AirAsia, its sister airline AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) and insurer Tune Protect Bhd on Bursa Malaysia.

The market capitalisation of AirAsia is at RM9.2bil, AAX (RM1.06bil), and Tune Protect (RM522mil).

Both Fernandes and Kamarudin hold a 32.2% stake in AirAsia, which is their flag-ship airline. This is held via Tune Air (15.5%) and Tune Live (16.7%).

Fernandes and Kamaurdin hold a 48.8% and 40.2% stake in Time Air. They have an equal stake in Tune Live and Tune Group.

In AAX, Time Group has a 17.8% stake, Kamarudin (11.1%) and AirAsia (13.8%). As for Tune Protect, Tune Group has 15.8%, AirAsia (13.7%).

Both the airline chiefs fell a spot lower to the 18th place from 17th as the richest Malaysians amid challenging times faced by the air sector and volatile fuel prices. Their net worth was nearly 14% lower to RM3.43bil from RM3.95bil a year earlier.

stake in Kossan. Kossan's recent acquisition of 800 acres in

Bidor, Perak will be its new base and incor-porate modern facilities. This project is antic-ipated to take up to eight years to finish at a cost of about RM1.5bil.

The group is one of the world's largest glove manufacturers with its products being sold in over 160 countries.

In the disposal latex glove market, it is known to be the world's second-largest man-ufacturer producing over 25 billion pairs of disposable gloves every year.

Over the medium term,the company aims to boost its manufacturing capacity by a fur-ther 18 billion gloves per year, which is a five-year compounded annual growth rate of 10% from 2019 to 2023.

It told shareholders recently that with the group's expansion plans and new capacity coming on-stream, continued demand for its gloves, a clear focus on cost savings, product quality and innovation, as well as improve-ment in production technology and operat-ing efficiency, it is confident that FY19 would be a "growth year" for the group.

20. DATUK MOHD ABDUL KARIM ABDULLAH, ABDUL KADIER SAHIB AND DATUK AWANG DAUD AWANG PUTERA Flagship: Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM2.96bil

SERBA Dinamik Holdings Bhd has been one of the darlings of the listed oil and gas servic-es companies since its listing in 2017. The listing had thrust Serba Dinamik's three larg-est shareholders into the limelight and into Malaysia's top-40 richest list. Recall that Datuk Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah, Abdul Kadier Sahib and Datuk Awang Daud Awang Putera gained a net worth of RM2.499bil as at Dec 31,2017, following the listing of the company that year.

That wealth has grown by almost 20% to hit RM3bil nudging them up by three spots.

Analysts continue to favor the stock, with Bloomberg data showing nine buy calls of the total 10 researchers covering it.

The company provides engineering solu-tions to the oil and gas (O&G), power genera-tion and utilities industries in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Middle East and the UK.

Just this week, Karim, the CEO, told the media that the company is targeting to hit a revenue of RM4bil for FY19.

For FY18, the company recorded an impressive 20.6% increase year-on-year in revenue to RM3.28bil.

The company has continuously managed to win new jobs. Its order book now stands at RM8.3bil, with a target of hitting RMlObil this year. The company is currently bidding for almost RM20bil worth of contracts glob-ally, such as in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Malaysia.

While O&G still remains Serba Dinamik's largest revenue contributor at 80% to 85%, the company aims to reduce its dependency on the sector and is looking at increasing its contribution from the power generation, industry.

In reiterating its buy call on Serba Dinamik, RHB Research recently noted that the company's operations and maintenance Business is expected to maintain its perfor-mance this year, with Middle East demand for its services remaining robust, even as it continues to penetrate into the Africa and Central Asia markets.

The EPCC division, on the other hand, is expected to record a stronger performance this year, with the construction of multiple projects set to be ramped up, totaling RMlbil.

22. TAN SRI AZMAN HASHIM Flagship: Amcorp Group Net worth: RM2.58bil

SYNONYMOUS with the Arab Malaysian Group, Azman saw his fortunes increase by some 5% in 2018.

A chartered account-ant-turned-banker, the 80-year-old who is fondly known as the "singing bank-er" within corporate circles due largely to his love for singing, moved up three rungs from his 25th position as Malaysia's richest person in 2017.

Back in 1982, Azman bought a 40% stake in Taiping Textiles, which later became Arab Malaysian Development Bhd.

In that same year, Azman bought Arab-Malaysian Development Bank, which later morphed into Arab-Malaysian Merchant Bank Bhd orAMMB.

Azman holds the entire stake in Amcorp group, which is into financial services, prop-

erty and engineering, infor-mation technology, and con-sumer goods and services.

! I Within the financial ser-vices sector, Azman is the second-largest shareholder with an effective 13% stake in AMMB, which controls AmBank, Amlnvestment Bank, Amlslamic Bank, AmSecurities and AMMB Nominees. Azman, via Amcorp group, has a 58% stake in RCE Capital Bhd and a 6.1% stake in AmFirst Reits, while AMMB has 26.7% in AmFirst Reits.

Within the property and engineering sector, Azman

through the Amcorp group has a 69% stake in Amcorp Properties Bhd and a 72.4% stake in Amcorp Properties-PA.

In the IT sector, Azman owns 100% of MCM Technologies.

In the consumer and services space, he has 100% interests in Harpers Travel and Restoran Seri Melayu and a 90% interest in Amcorp Auto.


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23. LIM TECK MENG AND FAMILY Flagship: Scientex Bhd Net worth: RM2.47bil

THANKS to rising profits, the net worth of industrial stretch film producer Scientex's founding family increased by some 6% last year, pushing them up six rungs from a year earlier.

Lim Teck Meng, 81, and his sons, Lim Peng Jin, 51, and Lim Peng Cheong, 56, saw their wealth increasing to RM2.47bil in 2018, as the firm reported the strongest performance in its history for both its fourth quarter and-full year ended July 31, 2018.

Also involved in the property sector, Scientex saw its net profit rising 13.3% to RM289.8mil, while revenue rose 9.3% to RM2.63bil for the full year of 2018.

In November 2018, Scientex said it would launch a mandatory general offer (MGO) for Daibochi Bhd to expand its flexible packag-ing business after proposing to acquire a

controlling 42.41% stake for RM222.5mil in a share swap.

This merger will enable Scientex to offer an integrated range of products to a larger client base and enhance its capabilities in the flexible packaging business through syner-gistic and complementary products to better serve a global clientele, the company said.

Daibochi is a leading flexible packaging provider in the South-East Asian region, with manufacturing plants in Malaysia and Myanmar.

It provides high-barrier laminated flexible packaging for reputable clientele comprising mainly multinational corporations in the food and beverage, fast moving consumer goods and specialty sectors.

Scientex's products are currently exported to more than 60 countries globally, covering most of the industrialised nations.

Within the property space, it has projects spread over 3,000 acres in Peninsular Malaysia.

25. DATUK TAN HENG CHEW Flagship: Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM2.36bil

THE Tan family, which is known for its distributorship of the Nissan marque in the South-East Asian region and China, climbed six rungs with their fortunes gain-ing some 2% last year.

Heng Chew, the eldest of the seven sons of Tan Sri Tan Yuet Foh, a co-founder of the group, is the president of the group's prized asset - Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd (TCM).

Heng Chew and family hold a direct 7.6% stake in TCM and an indirect 39.3% stake through Tan Chong Consolidated Sdn Bhd (TCC), the family's holding company.

Of Heng Chew's three sons, his youngest, Anthony Tan is the only one who struck out on his own and is now one of the region's most well-known entrepreneurs, having co-founded popular ride-hailing service provider, Grab.

Earlier this month, Grab obtained anoth-er round of funding from Softbank's tech

fund - a US$1.5bil boost -pushing up the company's -valuation to a whopping US$14bil.

At Tan Chong, 2018 was a year of mixed fortunes where it revealed plans to set up assembly plants to accoipmodate growth expec-tations.

Also in the same year, it lost the rights to import and distribute Nissan cars in Vietnam starting September this year but formed a new

joint venture in New York that will allow it to come up with new distribution channels in the US and Canada.

Financial-performance wise,TCM staged a turnaround when it recorded a net profit of RM51.56mil for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2018 from a previous net loss of RM7.19mil.

Revenue increased slightly to RM1.17bil from RM1.08bil in the same quarter of the previous year.

For the full year, the company recorded a net profit of RM101.03mil from a net loss of RM88.6mil previously.

27. DATUK LOH KIAN CHONG Flagship: Oriental Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM2.22bil

THE grandson of the late Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew or "Mr Honda", Loh Kian Cheng's net worth shrunk by about 6% in 2018.

In 2017, his wealth stood at about RM2.35bil and was ranked 28th among the 40 rich-est Malaysians.

The marginal decline in his net worth was led by the drop in the share price of Oriental Holdings from RM6.55 in 2017 to RM6.17 last year, giving it a market capitalisation of RM3.83bil.

Kian Chong has 58% deemed interest in Oriental Holdings.

This is held via the family's private-ly-owned companies - Boon Siew Sdn Bhd, Penang Yellow Bus Company Bhd, Bayview Hotel Sdn Bhd, Loh Boon Siew Holdings Sdn Bhd and Loh Kar Bee Holdings Sdn Bhd.

He joined the board of Oriental Holdings as executive director in May 2009 and was

appointed as deputy chair-man in November 2013.

He is now the executive chairman of the Penang-based conglomerate according to the company's latest annual report.

The Oriental group, which started by selling cars, has also expanded into investment holdings and financial services, hotels and resorts, proper-ty development, automo-bile and related products, plastics, healthcare and others.

Oriental plans to operate its new fourth oil mill in Indonesia 2019, to be built at a cost of RM156.1mil

In June last year, it was reported that preparations were underway for the construction of the oil mill, the first in south Sumatra.

The group's strategy for 2018 was to replant 239ha.

As for new planting activities in Indonesia, 9,350ha to date have been planted and it tar-gets to plant l,000ha to 2,000ha each year over the next two years.

24. KONG CHONG SOON @ CHI SUIM AND KONG PAK LIM Flagship: UOA Development Bhd and United Overseas Australia Net worth: RM2.41bil

SELF-MADE property billionaires Chong Soon and Pak Lim co-founded United Overseas Australia Ltd (UOA) and UOA Development Bhd.

Despite UOA Development reporting lower profits in 2018, their net wealth gained 3% to RM2.41bil, making the pair tie for the 24th position among the richest in Malaysia from an earlier 30th position.

Chong Soon, 78, has more than 33 years of experience in the construction and property development industries, both in Malaysia and Singapore.

He is currently the managing director of UOA Development.

Pak Lim, 66, meanwhile has more than 38 years of experience in the construction, min-ing and property development industries in both Malaysia and Australia.

He is currently the executive director of UOA Development.

Chong Soon and Pak Lim co-founded UOA back in the 1980s, listing the company which focuses on property development, construc-tion, property investment and property man-agement, on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1987.

Two years later, the UOA group decided to shift its headquarters and operations to Kuala Lumpur.

It later listed UOA Development on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia.

Chong Soon and Pak Lim own about an 84.6% stake in UOA through their private companies. UOA, in turn, owns 69.5% in UOA Development and a 76.6% stake in UOA REIT.

26. GOH PENG OOI Flagship: Silverlake Axis Ltd Net worth: RM2.24bil

GOH is the major sharehold-er of Silverlake Axis and together with his team, the company has carved out its presence in the banking sec-tor.

It has built an impeccable track record of successful core banking implementa-tions since its establishment about 30 years ago.

Currently over 40% of the top 20 largest banks in South-East Asia run on the company's core banking solution. Based on the latest annual report, Goh is the group executive chairman of the company.

Today, it is the core system platform part-ner of choice for three of the five largest Asean super regional financial institutions.

He saw his wealth declined by 25% last year amid a tough business environment. In 2017, Goh, who is also known as Malaysia's very first tech billionaire, was on the 20th spot of the country's top 40 richest people.

Silverlake's profit for the period attributa-ble to owners of the company decreased by 84% year-on-year in the first half of 2018 compared with a similar corresponding peri-

od in 2017. The company, which is list-

ed on the Singapore Exchange mainboard, also saw its reve-nue dwindled by 3% in the same period.

This was caused by lower contributions from project related revenue segments like software licensing, software and hardware products sales, software project services and credits and cards processing. As of last year, the company's market capitalisation

stood at S$1.13bil from S$1.52bil. Its share price at the end of last year was down to

S$0.42 from S$0.58 in 2017. Based on Silverlake's latest annual report,

it expects some of the positive business senti-ments in the financial services industry to continue in FY2019.

By executing the order book of projects, the company hopes to record a significant growth in project related revenue this year.

Goh notes that Silverlake aims to secure additional projects from the pipeline that is currently under discussion.

He adds it is mindful of the potential head-winds that can be created from an expan-sion of trade tariffs and will continue to monitor and prepare to respond to these developments in a timely manner.

28. TAN SRI VINCENT TAN Flagship: Berjaya Group Net worth: RM2.15bil

DESPITE a dip of about 12% in his net worth last year, Berjaya Corp Bhd (BCorp) founder and executive chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan is unperturbed as he marches on to add value to the group.

The tycoon was ranked on the 26th spot with a net worth of RM2.43bil in 2017. Since return-ing to helm the diversified group in November 2017 after a five-year hiatus, the tycoon has been strategising the group's businesses to improve their performance.

Towards this end, there has been reports of a possible assets sale and privatisation. The plan would start with the asset sale at his flagship BCorp.

The Berjaya Group boss said in December 2018 that he was considering plans to priva-tise 7-Eleven and his property and hotel business unit Berjaya land Bhd (BLand).

The primary reason driving him to consid

er the move is the consistent undervaluation of both compa-nies by the market.

On 7-Eleven, he says, the group is currently in talks with several banks to explore its options.

On BLand, the potential delist-ing of the company could per-haps give a good exit opportunity for minority shareholders. Any potential plan to delist BLand from the local stock exchange would only happen after the group carves out BLand's hotel

business to be floated on the Singapore Exchange.

The group is in the midst of sealing a deal to sell its Four Seasons Hotel and Hotel Residences Kyoto for about US$700 mil (RM2.93 bil) to US$800 mil, which will trans-late into a divestment gain of US$400mil.

BCorp will also invest RM1.65bil in Okinawa Four Seasons Hotel and hopes to make US$600mil on the Okinawa project.

If Tan succeeds in selling the Okinawa venture as well, he will be making a neat US$lbil from both projects.

29. TAN SRI DESMOND LIM Flagship: Pavilion and Malton Bhd Net worth: RM2.12bil

LIM'S net worth dropped in 2018 compared with the previous year.

Last year, he was the 29th richest Malaysian as opposed to 27th in 2017. This also resulted in his wealth declining by about 12% last year.

He has been involved in the property development and construction industries for more than three decades and is still

going strong. Lim is also the controlling shareholder of

the successful Pavilion shopping malls and property developer Malton, as well as engi-neering and property developer WCT Holdings Bhd.

Pavilion REITs still makes up the biggest chunk of his wealth, as the market capitali-sation of the counter as at the end of last year was RM4.98bil compared with RM238mil for Malton and RM956mil for WCT.

WCT's property sales are set to remain

challenging this year as the market remains soft with a lack of new launches.

While its property division could face persistent headwinds, its construction divi-sion and property investments are on firm-er ground.

WCT is set to stage an earnings recovery this year, after securing large scale con-struction jobs such as Pavilion Damansara and Tun Razak Exchange Mall (TRX Mall) last year.

WCT's RM1.4bil light rail transit 3 (LRT3) contract is expected to recommence in the

second half of this year following redesign works.

The acquisition of 60% of Subang Skypark by WCT is expected to generate long=term earnings for the group.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is in talks with Malton on the purchase of up to a 49% stake in Pavilion Bukit Jalil mall. This bodes well for the group moving forward. The entire Bukit Jalil City project has a GDV of RM4bil and is scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2020.


MediaTitle The Star






31. DATUK SERI CHEAH CHENG HYE Flagship: Value Partners Group Net worth: RM1.65bil

CHEAH'S wealth is derived from a direct 9.3% in Value Partners Group, and an indi-rect 21.8% via Cheah Capital Management Inc. Value Partners is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

For most in the investment community, the history of Value Partners and its iconic founder has been a tale told many times. It has been an inspiring story, especially because its founder Cheah was once a journalist from Star Media Group who now owns one of the largest asset-management companies in Asia.

For the uninitiated, Cheah was born in Penang in 1954 and started working in The Star at the age of 17 as a newspaper folder before subsequently becoming a reporter. He left Malaysia for Hong Kong in 1974.

He was a journalist for 17 years, including in The Star, Asiaweek, The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Wall Street Journal (Asian Edition).

It was while he was a financial journalist that Cheah realised that he had a passion for investment. He taught himself accounting and investment through books.

Cheah felt that being good in finance was a necessity to perform well in his job as a financial journalist.

He changed his career in 1989, joining Morgan Grenfell in Hong Kong as head of research in Hong Kong and China.

In 1993, he started his own business by founding Value Partners in Hong Kong with his partner V-Nee Yeh, with less than US$5mil (RM22.12mil) under management. Today, Value Partners is one of Hong Kong's big-gest success stories.

Today, Value Partners has assets under management worth US$16bil to date. Under the leadership of co-chief investment officers Cheah and Louis So, the company has transformed from a boutique firm to one of Asia's most respected asset managers. In addition to its Hong Kong headquarters and new office in Kuala Lumpur, Value Partners operates offices in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, London and Boston.

Value Partners Malaysia is also finally open for business. Last October, the Value Partners Malaysia office was launched after receiving an approval in principle from the Securities Commission for a capital market services licence for fund management.

32. WONG THEAN SOON AND DATUK NORRAESAH MOHAMAD Flagship: MyEG Services Bhd Net worth: RM1.4bil

BOTH Wong and Norraesah's wealth is pre-dominantly derived from their stakes in MyEG Services Bhd and Excel Force Bhd.

They own the stakes via vehicle Asia Internet Holdings Sdn Bhd, in which Norraesah has a 34% stake and Wong, 66%.

Wong, better known as TS Wong, is the managing director and single largest share-holder of MyEG. Both Wong and Norraesah hold a 20.2% stake in Excel Force via Asia Internet Holdings.

Once upon a time before the 14th general election (GE14), Wong and Norraesah were a lot wealthier, with their net wealth more than double the present amount. The mere mention of Wong's name in any one counter would see the stock rocketing up.

Prior to GE14, MyEG seemed to do no wrong - both in terms of its business and share price.

While MyEG started out as a provider of e-government services with the provision of solutions that are related to the vehicle road tax and drivers' licence renewal, among oth-ers, it successfully diversified into commer-cial solutions some four years ago.

Over a five-year period (before GE14), MyEG delivered a compounded annual growth rate of 45.1% on its profits and 36.8% on its revenue. Its shareholder equity also grew 32% over that period.

All good things must come to an end though.

Alas, the fall of Barisan Nasional saw Wong's invincible status and MyEG's for-tunes reverse.

MyEG used to have a market cap close to RMlObil. Despite taking a hit, its market cap remains sizeable at roughly RM4bil, with MyEG still trading at a price earnings ratio of some 56 times.

Earlier this year, MyEG ran into problems with the Malaysia Competition Commission with regards to its online foreign worker

30. DATUK SERI ROBERT TAN AND TAN BOON SENG FAMILY Flagship: IGB Group Net worth: 1.75bil

DATUK Seri Robert Tan and the Tan Boon Seng family was not spared, among others, by the challenging properly development and investment environment. Although their ranking improved last year from 2017 (ranked 32), their net worth plummeted by about 17% amid the tough economic climate.

Today, IGB Bhd's expertise lies in the build-ing, owning and managing of different types of property ranging from residential and hospitality, to mixed development.

The group is one of the largest listed prop-erty corporations in Malaysia.

IGB Bhd, formerly Goldis Bhd, completed its acquisition of the remaining stake in IGB Corp in March last year, paving the way for the group to undertake more robust proper-ty development projects moving forward.

The exercise was also aimed to de-layer the corporate structure between Goldis and IGB for more efficient management.

Net profit for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2018, saw the group charting a high-er net profit of RM92mil from about RM60mil a year ago despite a lower growth in revenue for the period.

Meanwhile, it was reported that IGB's new mall development, Mid Valley Southkey, in

Johor is likely to be unveiled in the second quarter of this year due to teething prob-lems.

The RM6bil mixed develop-ment was earlier expected to be soft-launched on Aug 8 of last year.

The occupancy in the newly completed Southpoint Tower in Mid Valley City is, however, gaining traction despite the current office space oversupply.

The residential portion of Southpoint is also being

"tweaked" to make the units more marketa-ble, according to a research house.

In the UK, the 18 Blackfriars mixed project is expected to be unveiled in 2020 due to longer-than-expected approvals from the city council.

The research house also said that the joint venture to develop a project in Bangkok is on the backburner as the group awaits a more conducive environment before starting on the 5.8-acre site.

The group expects this year to be a chal-lenging year for its property and hotel busi-nesses.

In October last year, the co-founder of IGB Corp Datuk Tan Chin Nam passed away.

Starting from humble beginnings, Tan and his brother, the late Kim Yeow, set up a trad-ing company Wah Seong before they ven-tured into property.

Robert, who is group CEO of IGB, is Chin Nam's nephew.

renewal system. The issue has since been resolved with MyEG having paid penalties of RM6.41mil.

In 2019, MyEG will focus on its new ser-

vice - the online registration of new foreign workers, which is expected to be its new rev-enue growth driver for domestic operations over the next one to two years.

33. WEN CHIU CHI AND FAMILY Flagship: Selangor Properties Bhd Net Worth: RM1.3bil.

KAYIN Holdings Sdn Bhd, the vehicle of the Wen family, is looking to privatise Selangor Properties Bhd (SPB) at RM6.30 per share through a selectival capital reduction (SCR) and repayment exercise.

The price of RM6.30 is a revised takeover price, and while a lot higher than the RM5.70 first proposed, it is still below its book value of some RM7.17.

The Wen family, that owns 68.23% of SPB via its investment vehicle Kayin Holdings,

raised its proposed SCR and repayment offer price by 30 sen for the second time earlier this year.

The plan to privatise the property compa-ny was announced on Oct 25, 2018 at RM5.70 per share. Less than two months later on Dec 17, the Wen family upped its offer price to RM6.

Just a month before that announcement, the matriarch of SPB, Puan Sri Chook Yew Chong Wen, passed away in September 2018. She was 98.

Chiu Chi, 62, the third among Chook's four children, assumed the position of executive chairman. He was previously the managing

director. SPB is one of the oldest property compa-

nies on Bursa Malaysia. Chook's husband, the late Tan Sri Dr Wen

Tien Kuang founded the company with her in 1963. Tien Kuang passed away in 2000.

Kayin said the decision to privatise the group via the capital reduction and repay :

ment exercise would provide the group with greater flexibility to manage and develop its businesses and undertake corporate exercis-es which may otherwise require lengthy shareholder and regulatory approvals.

To recap, the proposed exercise is expect-ed to be funded via the company's internally

generated funds and/or bank facilities to be obtained by SPB.

SPB, the major developer of Pusat Bandar Damansara in Kuala Lumpur back in the 1980s, owns several properties in Malaysia and Australia.

According to its annual report, the total book value of its properties in Malaysia -which include several plots of prime land and office buildings in Damansara Heights and Bukit Tunku in Kuala Lumpur - stood at RM1.24bil as of Oct 31, 2017.

SPB owns two properties in Claremont, Australia, with a cumulative book value of RM190.4mil.

34. WONG TEEK SON Flagship: Riverstone Holdings Ltd Net Worth: RM1.3bil

JOINING the glove tycoon league is 56-year-old Teek Son. Although not quite a newcom-er, he is not so well known in Malaysia because his flagship company Riverstone is listed in Singapore.

He is the co-founder of Riverstone, one of the top nitrile glovemakers in the world, established since 1989.

Riverstone specialises in the production of cleanroom gloves and healthcare gloves, fin-gercots, face masks and packaging bags.

It has grown to become the leading latex medical examination glove manufacturer and global supplier of cleanroom and health-care gloves.

He listed it on the main board of the

Singapore Stock Exchange in 2006 and has served as its executive chairman since 2005. Co-founder Lee Wai Keong is the chief oper-ating officer while brother Teck Choon heads the company's business development.

Teek Son holds a Master in Business Administration from Monash University and a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree from Universiti Malaya.

Their products are widely qualified and used in the hard disk drive semiconductor and healthcare industries in Malaysia.

It exports more than 85% of its products to key high-technology countries around Asia, Europe and the American region.

Riverstone has been growing extensively because of demand for its gloves. To cope with growing demand, it has increased its capacity by setting up a new manufacturing plant in Thailand in 2001 and another one in

Wu Xi, China in 2004. In 2010, it built a new plant in Taiping,

equipped with only state-of-the-art manufac-turing facilities.

Riverstone plans to add another 1.4 billion pieces of gloves by end-2019, boosting its total annual production capacity to 10.4 bil-lion pieces of gloves. The group is completing the Phase 5 expansion plan at Taiping, Malaysia and expects to bring the group's total annual production capacity to nine bil-lion gloves.

In line with its expansion plans, the group has recently acquired three adjoining indus-trial land parcels measuring approximately 14.6 acres in the Larut Matang District for RM18.2mil.

The land will support the business expan-sion with the construction of new factories which house additional production lines.


MediaTitle The Star






35. LIM HAN WENG Flagship: Yinson Holdings Bhd Net Worth: RM1.3bil

NEW entrant Lim Han Weng, 67, makes it into the rich list via his 28.3% direct stake in his floating production, stor-age and offloading vessel (FPSO) company, Yinson.

Lim is the son of Chinese nationals who emigrated to Malaysia on a rickety boat with only the clothes on their backs and hopes of building a better life for their family.

Lim's father started off by selling Chinese medicine in Kampung Bakar Arang, Sungai Petani, and eventually earned enough to buy a small piece of land to grow rubber and oil palm trees.

Lim built Yinson from scratch in 1983, and it started off as a small transport and logis-tics company in Johor Baru.

He developed and grew it over the years, and got a break into the big league - marine transportation - in 2010.

Yinson thus ventured into the marine transport business to complement its trans-port and logistics services.

The following year, Yinson entered the oil and gas (O&G) industry by forming a consor-tium with PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp, which was subsequently awarded a

contract for the charter of a float-ing storage and offloading vessel (FSO).

This paved the way for Yinson to win a contract for the charter of an FPSO, which are essentially vessels that store and process oil.

Today, Yinson is a global com-pany and the sixth-largest active floating FPSO provider in the world, with a fleet size of five FPSOs and one FSO.

Today, Yinson engages in the ownership and operation of ships, trading, leasing and

sub-leasing of vessels on a bareboar and time-charter basis, the provision of consult-ing services relating to ship management, the provision of FPSO vessels for chartering and service activities incidental to O&G extraction, and shipping and vessel charter-ing activities.

It has operations in Malaysia, Asia, Africa and Norway.

It has been a busy 2019 for Yinson so far. Just earlier this month, Yinson was award-

ed contracts for the charter, operations and maintenance of an FPSO vessel amounting to an estimated US$901.79mil (RM3.67bil) for use at the Anyala and Madu fields in Nigeria.

The FPSO contracts, awarded by First Exploration & Petroleum Development Co Ltd (First E&P), are for a firm period of seven years, followed by a two-year and six yearly extension options exercisable by First E&P.

36. DATUK TEE ENG HO Flagship: Kerjaya Prospek Group Bhd Net worth: RM1.25bil

OVER the course of one year, Tee, who was ranked 34th in 2018, slipped two places to 36th, following a decline of RM400mil in wealth.

Kerjaya Prospek's share price plunged 36% during the 12-month period.

Tee controls Kerjaya Prospek through a private vehicle, Amazing Parade Sdn Bhd, which has a 70.8% stake in Kerjaya Prospek. Its clients include major property developers who see the use of the industrialised build-ing system, which the company has been deploying since 2010, as cost- and time-ef-fective.

Tee also has a stake in Eastern & Oriental Bhd (E&O), a relationship that goes back to a time when Kerjaya Prospek was known as Fututech Bhd and was an associate of E&O. He also sits on the board of E&O.

Kerjaya Prospek is developing a mixed-development project with a gross development value of RMl.lbil at Old Klang Road, expected to be launched by the first quarter of this year.

The project, sprawled over 5.19 acres and slated for completion in 2022, will consist of the 276-room "Courtyard by

Marriot," two towers of 68-storey service apartments and offices.

According to reports, the group is expecting a "much better" year in 2019, as it is currently tendering for about RM1.5bil worth of projects with a success rate of about 20%.

Kerjaya Prospek targeted to secure RMlbil worth of jobs last year and achieved RM989.8mil.

The company's outstanding order book stood at RM3.02bil as at end-2018.

The company's net profit grew 19% to RM34.03mil for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2018 from RM28.58mil, while quarterly revenue during the period rose 5.2% to RM265.33mil from RM252.31m.il in the previous corresponding period.

In November 2018, the group secured two contracts worth RM282.25mil from Nusmetro Group for substructure works of a commercial development comprising a three-storey basement carpark and 51-sto-rey office building in Mont Kiara worth RM29.8mil.

The job also entails the construction of the main building of a proposed commer-cial development in Jalan Cheras worth RM252.4mil.

37. TAN SRI ONG LEONG HUAT Flagship: OSK Holdings Bhd and OSK Ventures International Bhd Net worth: RM1.16bil

ONG maintains his position in 37th place on the list as he did last year, although during the course of the past 12 months, the tycoon saw his earnings declining RM300mil or 19%.

His flagship OSK Holdings holds a 10.1% stake in RHB Bank, a result of the acquisition of the-then RHB Capital Bhd of OSK Investment Bank Bhd in 2012 for RM1.95biI.

In light of adverse global market condi-tions, OSK Holdings decided not to list its cable business, OCC Cables Ltd, on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, as initially planned.

OCC manufactures power cable products for power transmission and distribution sys-tems in Malaysia and Vietnam, namely, low voltage, medium voltage and fire-resistant power cables. The company is a registered supplier of certain power cable products for Tenaga Nasional Bhd.

During the course of 2018, OSK Holdings'

share price dropped 11.5%. For 2019, OSK Holdings is tar-

geting to launch four projects, namely, You City 3 in Cheras; 3A Single Storey Terrace Homes and 3C Double Storey Terrace Homes of Riyasana at the Iringan Bayu Township in Seremban; Phase 1 at Sentul, Kuala Lumpur and Precinct 3,4 and 5 in Bandar Puteri Jaya, Sungai Petani with a total gross development value (GDV) of RM1.21bil.

As at Dec 31,2018, the group had unbilled sales of RM1.54bil

with minimal unsold completed stocks, as there were continuous effort to sell these unsold properties.

The balance land bank is about 1,734 acres with an estimated GDV of RM10.44bil, locat-ed in the Klang Valley, Sungai Petani, Butterworth, Kuantan, Seremban and Melbourne in Australia.

The company expects the property invest-ment division to contribute steady rental income from its commercial and retail ten-ants. Meanwhile, the construction segment will continue to focus on delivering its cur-rent order book in a timely manner.

The group is confident it will deliver satis-factory results for 2019.

38. DATUK LEONG KOK WAH Flagship: Eco World Development Group Bhd, Eco World International Bhd and Salcon Bhd Net worth: RM1.06bil

LEONG saw his earnings tum-ble 35% or RM600mil in 2018, placing him at 38th on the list this year compared to 33 last year.

He sits on the boards of Eco World and Salcon. Leong is also a long-time associate of Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin, the prime mover behind Eco World Development and Eco World International (EWI).

EWI is an Eco World Development associ-ate that specialises in property projects out-side Malaysia, while Salcon specialises in water infrastructure. Through several pri-vate vehicles, Leong, who has a stockbroking and fund management background, holds substantial stakes in Eco World Development and EWI.

In December 2018, EWI's 70%-owned joint venture, EcoWorld London, announced that it would let and manage over 1,000 build-to-rent (BtR) homes in London as part of a deal worth £389mil (RM2.1bil) with Invesco Real Estate.

The target for EcoWorld London is to

secure 10,000 homes under this BtR programme over the next five years.

The acquisition is being made on a forward-funded basis which will enable EcoWorld London to recover about £66mil

\ (RM348.8mil) of its land cost k« shortly after the exchange of con-

tracts. ? W On the local front, Eco World ^ ^ ^ Development announced in

February that it will lease 50 houses and retail lots to Taiwan intelligent hotel operator Dun-Qian Hotel Management Co

Ltd as part of a collaboration to set up the first intelligent accommodation in the country.

The whole of 2018 saw Eco World Development dropping 35%.

Eco World Development posted a net prof-it of RM68.53mil in the fourth quarter ended Oct 31, more than double the sum of RM33.71mil recorded in the year-ago quarter on contributions from its joint ventures and projects.

The group's share of unbilled sales to be carried over to 2019 stands at RM6.43bil, which is a record high for Eco World. Revenue for the quarter under review was RM607.58mil versus RM904.06mil in the 2017 quarter.

39. YONG PANG CHAUN Flagship: Padini Holdings Bhd Net worth: RM1.03bil

YONG dropped four places to 39th this year, his wealth falling 14% or RM200mil during the past year.

He controls Padini via a 44.5% stake held through Yong Pang Chaun Holdings Sdn Bhd.

Padini started from humble beginnings in the apparel industry, with its roots in the manufactur-ing, trading and supplying of garments to retailers and distributors. Over the years, the group ventured into dis-tribution and retail by creating its own brands catering to specific consumer nich-es.

Today, the group is a leader in the mul-ti-bilhon textile and garment industry in Malaysia. It boasts nine labels in its family of brands and retailing in 330 freestanding stores, franchised outlets and consignment counters in Malaysia and around the world.

Padini was quick to see the importance of the Internet, having set up operations since 2000. The company has been busy set-ting up its e-commerce infrastructure and

like many brick-and-mortar retailers, sees e-commerce con-tributing to its growth.

Today, it has a foreign pres-ence in Bahrain, Brunei, Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Morocco, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

The company's share price fell 31% throughout 2018.

Padini's net profit grew 6.47% to RM53.2mil in the sec-ond quarter ended Dec 31, 2018, from RM49.97mil a year earlier, mainly due to higher sales generated from the open-

ing of four new stores. Quarterly revenue was up marginally by

0.47% to RM462.58mil from RM460.43mil previously.

Going into 2019, the group is confident of turning in another profitable period despite the challenging economic environment and rising cost.

In its notes accompanying its half-year financial earnings, the company said its management will continue to be vigilant to the changes in the external environment and take necessary action, including reviewing its cost structure to maintain long-term sustainable growth.

40. GOOI SEONG LIM & FAMILY Flagship: Kim Loong Resources Bhd and Crescendo Corp Bhd Net worth: RMl.Olbil

THE Gooi family dropped one spot to 40, having seen their earnings dip RM200mil over the course of 12 months. They first entered the list in 2017.

Kim Loong Resources' busi nesses are in the plantation and milling operations. In 2018, the group successfully implemented corporate exer-cises involving a share split of one existing ordinary share to three sub-divided shares; and a bonus issue of war-rants (one warrant for every 20 subdivided shares) in April 2018.

The group is also looking for more land in the country as part of its long-term plan to increase its oil palm plantation acreage. It is focusing its search on Kelantan as it still has large tracts of land for plantation activities.

The group prefers greenfields as it con-siders them better, easier and more cost-ef-fective to work on compared to a brown-field.

It has over 58,000 acres of oil palm estates in Johor, Sabah and Sarawak, of which 2,700 acres are in Kota Tinggi, Johor, Telupid (4,934 acres), Sandakan (6,748 acres) and Keningau (17,841 acres) in Sarawak and three palm oil mills in Johor and Sabah with a total processing capacity of 205 tonnes of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) hourly.

On its prospects for 2019, the group forecasts FFB pro-duction to be in the region of 90% of financial year 2018 (FY18), mainly due to

replanting programmes for old palm areas, but cushioned by increasing yields from young matured areas.

For the milling operations, the group has achieved a record high processing quantity of 1.5 million tonnes of FFB in FY18.

With the recent sharp drop in the crude palm oil (CPO) price to RM1.700 per tonne, the group expects the CPO price to stabilise above RM2.000 per tonne in the first half of 2019 when production trends enter the low-yield cycle.

Kim Loong's share price dipped more than 13% last year.


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