Four Malaysians make debut on Forbes billionaires list

Westports Gnanalingam

KUALA LUMPUR: New Malaysian entrants to the Forbes world’s billionaires list this year include the Tan brothers of MR DIY Group (M) Bhd, Westports Holdings Bhd’s Tan Sri G Gnanalingam (pic) and Greatech Technology Bhd co-founder and CEO Tan Eng Kee.

In Forbes’ 35th annual list of the world’s billionaires, brothers Tan Yu Yeh and Tan Yu Wei made their debut with estimated net worth of US$1.8bil (RM7.38bil) and US$1.1bil (RM4.51bil), respectively.

The brothers have seen their fortunes soar following the initial public offering of MR DIY on Bursa Malaysia in October last year with a market capitalisation of RM10bil upon listing.

Gnanalingam was included in the list with an estimated net worth of US$1.7bil while Tan Eng Kee became another of the world’s US-dollar billionaires with an estimated net worth of US$1.1bil.

Meanwhile, Hong Leong Group’s Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan continued to top the list of Malaysian billionaires with an estimated net worth of US$9.7bil.

Other Malaysian billionaires on the list included Ananda Krishnan with US$5.8bil net worth, Public Bank Bhd’s Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow (US$5.7bil), Top Glove Corp Bhd’s Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai (US$3.5bil) and Genting’s Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay (US$2.7bil).

Globally, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos remained the richest person in the world with a net worth of US$177bil.

This was followed by Tesla’s Elon Musk (US$151bil), luxury retailer LVMH’s Bernard Arnault and family (US$150bil) and Microsoft’s Bill Gates (US$124bil).

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, rounded out the Top 5 with US$97bil.

This was the first year that Warren Buffet had not been included in the top five, having slipped to sixth place.

There is a record-breaking 2,755 billionaires on the list, including 493 newcomers despite the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

On the list, the number of female billionaires increased to 328, up from 241 in 2020.

The Forbes billionaires have a combined net worth of US$13.1 trillion, up from US$8 trillion on the 2020 list.