The richest people in Singapore
Yong is founder of hot pot chain Haidilao. Mai Shangmin/China News Service/Visual China Group
The richest person in Singapore is Li Xiting, the founder and CEO of a company that supplies medical devices. Li didn't even break into the top 15 richest people in Singapore in January — now, he's worth $18.1 billion, according to Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires list. The executive's wealth has skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic as countries around the world buy his company's medical products, which include ventilators, imaging devices, and patient monitors, per the South China Morning Post. In March 2019, Li was worth $5.5 billion, per Forbes. By April 2020, his fortune had swelled to $11.6 billion.
Earlier this year, Singapore's richest person was Zhang Yong, a 50-year-old restaurateur who chairs the popular Sichuan hot pot chain Haidilao, which has locations in China, the US, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Now, Zhang has been knocked down to the second spot by Li. Zhang's wife, Shu Ping, the director of the company, is also on Singapore's billionaires list, with a net worth of $3.4 billion. Here are Singapore's richest people, who are worth a combined $111.7 billion:
- Li Xiting
- Zhang Yong
- Goh Cheng Liang
- Eduardo Saverin
- Robert and Philip Ng
- Forrest Li
- Wee Cho Yaw
- Kwee brothers
- Kwek Leng Beng
- Shu Ping
- Gang Ye
- Jason Chang
- Kuok Khoon Hong
- Raj Kumar and Kishin RK
- Zhao Tao
Singapore’s 50 Richest: $37 Billion Added To Their Wealth Amid Pandemic
Pandemic-induced economic pains have pushed Singapore into recession. For the quarter ended in June, the trade-dependent country reported a year-on-year 13.2% drop in GDP, despite $68 billion in stimulus packages by the government to shore up the economy. The benchmark STI stock index has also fallen 21% from when we measured fortunes in 2019.
Bucking this downward trend, the nation’s 50 richest saw their collective net worth rise 28% to $167 billion. The city-state, which has become a magnet for tycoons from all corners of the world, has benefited by providing a home for these wealthy expats, some taking citizenship. They occupy three of the top five spots on the list.
China-born hotpot billionaire Zhang Yong, whose wife Shu Ping, a cofounder and director of Haidilao International Holding, is listed together with him this year, added $5.2 billion to retain the No. 1 spot. A new entrant, worth $17.8 billion, took the No. 2 spot: Li Xiting, cofounder and chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, who’s now a naturalized Singapore citizen like Zhang. A surge in demand for Shenzhen Mindray’s ventilators and other medical devices sent its Shenzhen-listed shares soaring amid the pandemic. The rise of Facebook shares this year also benefited No. 4 Eduardo Saverin, the social media giant’s cofounder. Paint tycoon Goh Cheng Liang of Nippon Paint moves one spot up to No. 3 as his net worth increased to $14.8 billion from $9.5 billion last year. Rounding out the top five are real estate siblings Robert and Philip Ng of Far East Organization, whose combined net worth rose $1.1 billion to $13.2 billion.
Pandemic Buying In Singapore Drives Up Net Worth Of Sheng Siong Supermarket Owners
The company saw a 151% increase in second-quarter earnings, to S$46 million ($33 million), on a 76% rise to S$419 million in revenues, it said in its second-quarter earnings report released in late July. Sheng Siong cautioned revenues would shrink if the pandemic fades away. “With the gradual easing of restrictions on movements of people, elevated demand caused by Covid-19 will ease,” the company said. Lim Hock Chee and Sheng Siong were unavailable for comment.
Born to a hog farmer with nine children, the Lim brothers bought a struggling chain of stores using S$30,000 borrowed from their father and renamed it Sheng Siong, or “rising vegetable” in Hokkien. Today, Sheng Siong is Singapore’s third-largest supermarket chain by sales, with 61 outlets in Singapore and two in Kunming, and a market cap of S$2.5 billion.
