Robert Kuok Hock Nien

One of the successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia is Robert Kuok Hock Nien. He is a Malaysian Chinese businessman that born 6 October 1923 in Johor Bharu. Nowadays, Robert Kuok residences in Hong Kong. He has been married two times and has eight children. Robert is Malaysia's richest person, invested his money in sugar, palm oil, shipping and property. He is living up to the name ‘Sugar King of Asia’.

Robert Kuok’s family originally from Fujian province in China and move to Asia at the beginning of 20^th century and settle down in Malaysia. Robert Kuok began his working life as an office junior. After he graduated he worked in the grains department of Japanese industrial empire Mitsubishi for three years. After his father died in 1948, the three siblings had founded their first company, Kuok Brothers Sdn.Bhd in1949 which is trading agricultural commodities. 

In 1952, Robert traveled to England and observed the workings of the London Commodities Exchange. When Malaysia gained its independence, he returned home in 1957 with a wealth of knowledge and experience which he used to expand the family business.

Kuok Brothers Sdn.Bhd specialized in the sale of agricultural goods, and the first great success was in 1961 when he bought large quantities of cheap sugar from India, just before the prices rocketed. He continued to invest heavily in sugar refineries. This action had controlled 80% of the Malaysian sugar market with production of 1.5 million tons, equivalent to 10% of world production, and so earned his nickname ‘Sugar King of Asia’.

Throughout the 60s and 70s Kuok's company grew rapidly, with steadily rising prices for sugar. In 1968 when his sugar trading business was booming, he created the Perlis Plantation and expanded his business into sugar production.

Then in 1971, Kuok along with executives from two other big players in the industry sold a million tons of sugar to China. Later that decade Kuok expanded into Indonesia. There he established Indonesia's largest sugar plantation with business partner Liem Sioe Liong.

In the same year, he built the first Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. After 10 years, he built the second, the Kowloon Shangri-La in Hong Kong. Years later, in 1987 he purchased a 30% share in Sucden Kerry International, a French company which controls a large percentage of the world's sugar trade. This is the time that he became involved in the oil trade.

In 1988, Sucden Kerry International bought 67% of the shares in a Hamburg oil trading firm. He also invested in many other ventures including an 18% stake in TVB broadcasting, as well as a 35% share in a large newspaper, South China Morning Star.

His hotel chains, the Shangri La Group are now a leading luxury hotel group in his part of the world. The chain owns and runs 66 hotels on an international scale and hotels can be found in Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and many other countries. Now his Kuok Group boasts a huge network of companies under 3 main holding companies, in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia which estimate his net worth U$12.5 billion. 

His political influence is attested by his having been selected as one of the advisors on Hong Kong's future in the run up to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong and his minority stake in CITIC Pacific. He was also instrumental in conveying information and setting up the meetings between Malaysia and China governments leading to full diplomatic cross recognition of the two countries.

 

Robert Kuok also is a good opportunities oriented. In 1957, Malaya achieved independence from its English colonial master.  He immediately seized the opportunity to swiftly establish his business network throughout Malaysia, based on an end-to-end which is raw materials then processing and finally distribution business model.  He also mastered the intricacies of commodities trading in London in the 50s.  By the 70s, he was known as the "Sugar King" as he controlled up to 10percent of the global sugar market. After proclaiming success in the sugar refinery business, he quickly moved into other businesses, and established the largest flour mill in Malaysia.

 

Other than that, Robert Kuok is a Zen master of networking. His skill at managing within the network's structure has earned him the sobriquet of the 'World's shrewdest businessman' from Forbes magazine. Robert Kuok used his excellent connections with government and industry to rapidly scale up his empire.  In this way, he forged many strategic alliances with other parties.  With the government, he joint hands to form a shipping company, and later built hotels, office buildings and convention centers.  With partners, he founded banks.  Thus, through business savvy, open-mindedness and his links, he has diversified into almost everything under the sun.  Apart from a plethora of enterprises in Malaysia, he operates in many other countries and regions like Singapore, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Fiji and Australia.  His business interests span from sugarcane plantations, sugar refinery, four milling, animal feed, oil and mining to finance, hotels, properties, trading and freight. 

According to the interview of CCTV, in China, Robert Kuok mentioned the most affected person in his life is his mother. This is because his mother told them must obey business ethics and must use money wisely. Family education to Robert Kuok had made him with excellent personalities which are humble, filial piety and not ego. He does not seek to limelight; prefer to live a life of thrift and simplicity, winning him accolades and admiration near and far Robert Kuok thinks that the only passport to success is strive and hard work. This also made him become a persistent and self-directed person.

Besides that, he thinks that 90% success is hard work which is included concern information around us and news of world. For example, supply and demand in economy, quantity of produces and consuming, transportation and government issues. He is an information seeker in business.

I choose Robert Kuok as my target entrepreneur for writing this blog, because he leads Malaysian richest people list for the ninth time in a row. According to the latest list of Malaysia's richest person by Forbes, he has let the pack since 2006 when Forbes began ranking the richest Malaysians.  Robert Kuok is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia. He has successfully  he started from a humble beginning in Johor Bahru and over the years with the right attitude and sweat, blood and tears.

 

According to Robert Kuok, there is no substitute for hard work, thinking up good and an honest business plan. To be a successful entrepreneur, he advises young man to be humble, to be straight, don't be crooked and don't take advantage of people. And yet, there will be always business on earth.

 

 The life story of Robert Kuok inspired me a lot. Although he decamped Malaysia for Hong Kong for the past 4 decades, but he hasn't lost his affection for Malaysia. Robert Kuok still rooted to Malaysia despite spending 40 years in Hong Kong.