Robert Kuok

Kuok's family group began trading rice, sugar and flour in 1949, then added businesses such as Shangri-La hotels and maritime transport in the early 1970s. Later holdings expanded the mix into property and logistics. The company's own history makes the transition unusually clear: a successful commodity business became a platform for investments outside food. These were group and family interests, so describing the whole portfolio as Kuok's personal cash would obscure its ownership structure.