Forbes Asia

2 0 0 BE ST U N DE R A B I L LI O N C OMPAN I E S
AUGUST 2020
SINGAPORE’S 50 RICHEST
RISING SEA
FORREST LI’S SEA IS ON
A GROWTH WAVE
W W W. F O R B E S .C O M
DISPLAY UNTIL M I D-SEPTEMBER
AUSTRALIA....................A $12.00 INDIA.................................RS 475 KOREA...........................W 10,500 PAKISTAN........................RS 900 TAIWAN..........................NT $275
CHINA.......................RMB 85.00 INDONESIA................RP 90,000 MALAYSIA...................RM 26.00 PHILIPPINES.......................P 300 THAILAND..........................B 300
HONG KONG..................HK $90 JAPAN......................¥1238 + TAX NEW ZEALAND...........NZ $13.00 SINGAPORE....................S $12.50 UNITED STATES..........US $10.00
60
August 2020 Volume 16 • Number 6
2 INSIDE
CONTENTS
36 | High Sea
Forrest Li’s Sea is
booming as the
pandemic drives users
to play its online games,
shop on its e-commerce
site and use its digital
payment services.
By John Kang
44 | Bucking
the Trend
Singapore’s 50 Richest
added $37 billion despite
a declining economy and
stock market.
By Naazneen Karmali
COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY SEAN LEE FOR FORBES ASIA
FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

ENTREPRENEURS THE INVESTIGATION
10 | Master of Mystery 52 | Dukes of Moral Hazard 10

Wang Ning is readying his fast- Thanks to low rates, big companies
growing, Beijing-based company have spent years gorging on debt,
Pop Mart for an IPO—and an some recklessly. But rather than 3
expansion beyond China. heading into bankruptcy, they’re now
getting government support.
By Yue Wang
CONTENTS
By Antoine Gara and Nathan Vardi
14 | The Bureaucrat Wrestler

THE SAGA
While the hospitality industry is
troubled, Warren Meyer’s campgrounds 60 | Worst. Deal. Ever.
are doing fine. After Eric Baker was fired from StubHub,
By William Baldwin the ticketing giant he cofounded, he
raised $4 billion to buy it back—weeks
before coronavirus destroyed the business.
16 | Cleaning Up Revenge isn’t always sweet. 8 | Tech Connector
Houston-based Solugen is making
By Noah Kirsch Rich Karlgaard
cheaper, more effective industrial
chemicals to help scrub everything This time is different. Really.
from pools and hot tubs to oil and gas THE PROFILE
companies’ wastewater. 68 | Stopping the Pandemic 9 | Economics Matters
Yuwa Hedrick-Wong
By Alex Knapp and the Next One
Jeff Skoll has funded pandemic Households hold the keys to recovery.
preparedness for over a decade,
BEST UNDER A BILLION
longer than Bill Gates. Now he’s 72 | Thoughts
20 | 200 Best Under A Billion increased his philanthropic giving On ambition.
The annual Best Under A Billion list to combat Covid-19.
spotlights 200 publicly listed small and By Kerry A. Dolan
midsized companies in the Asia-Pacific
region with sales under $1 billion.
INVESTING
26 | Optimism Rules
Baillie Gifford’s stock picks have turned
out to be perfect for the pandemic.
By Antoine Gara
TECHNOLOGY
29 | Intelligence Agents
Normally, humans train AI systems
to replace them. Asapp’s software
trains customer-service reps to be
better humans. Page 20
By Alan Ohnsman and Kenrick Cai
STRATEGIES
32 | Getting America
Back On Track
Wes Edens is betting $9 billion
that America’s transportation future
is passenger rail.
By Alan Ohnsman and Antoine Gara
AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

6 BUSINESS EDITORIAL
Chief Executive Officer William Adamopoulos Editor Justin Doebele
Senior Vice President Tina Wee Executive Editor Wayne Arnold
Executive Directors Eugene Wong, Aarin Chan, Janelle Kuah Asia Wealth Editor & India Editor Naazneen Karmali
Director, Circulation Eunice Soo Senior Editors Robert Olsen, Rana Wehbe Watson, Grace Chung
Sales Directors Michelle Ong, Janice Ang Art Director Mirna Aprilla
Deputy Director, Circulation Pavan Kumar Assistant Editor John Kang
Deputy Director, Events & Communications Audra Ruyters Contributing Editor Jennifer Wells
Deputy Director, Conferences Jolynn Chua Multimedia Producer Atika Lim
Senior Manager/Assistant to the CEO Jennifer Chung Office Manager, Editorial Cathy Yip
Senior Manager, Events & Communications Melissa Ng
Senior Manager, Ad Services – Digital Keiko Wong ASIA CONTRIBUTOR NETWORK
Ad Services Manager Fiona Carvalho Columnist Yuwa Hedrick-Wong
Conference Managers Clarabelle Chaw, Dorinn Chin, Elaine Dang Bangkok Suzanne Nam
Manager, Marketing & Research Gwynneth Chan Beijing Yue Wang
Assistant Manager, Conferences Peh Ying Si Chennai Anuradha Raghunathan
Office Manager, Hong Kong Megan Cheung Delhi Megha Bahree
Advertising Executive Sharon Joseph Ho Chi Minh Lan Anh Nguyen
Marketing and Research Executives Priscilla Lim, Goh Yu Zhen Hong Kong Shu-Ching Jean Chen
Advertising Coordinator Tiffany Tan Jakarta Joseph Cochrane
Circulation Services Taynmoli Karuppiah Sannassy, Jennifer Yim Manila Roel Landingin
Perth Tim Treadgold
Shanghai Jane Ho
Singapore Christian Barker
Taipei Joyce Huang
Tokyo James Simms
CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: STEVE FORBES
FORBES MEDIA EDITORIAL

Chief Executive Officer and President Michael Federle Chief Content Officer Randall Lane
Chief Financial Officer Michael York Director, Editorial Operations Caroline Howard
Chief Revenue Officer Jessica Sibley Executive Editors Luisa Kroll, Kerry Lauerman, Michael Noer
General Counsel MariaRosa Cartolano Design Director Alicia Hallett-Chan
Assistant General Counsel Nikki Koval Assistant Managing Editors Kerry A. Dolan, Brett Knight,
Editor-at-Large/Global Futurist Rich Karlgaard Rob LaFranco, Janet Novack, Michael Ozanian, Jennifer Rooney,
EVP, ForbesWoman Moira Forbes Matt Schifrin, Michael Solomon, Alex Wood
Editorial Counsel Jessica Bohrer
FOUNDED IN 1917
DIGITAL
Editor-in-Chief (1917-54) B.C. Forbes
Chief Product Officer Nina Gould
Editor-in-Chief (1954-90) Malcolm S. Forbes
Chief Technology Officer Vadim Supitskiy
Editor (1961-99) James W. Michaels
Editor (1999-2010) William Baldwin
AUGUST 2020 — VOLUME 16 • NUMBER 6

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Sidelines
DATA DRIVEN 7
n June, the World Bank released an out- those companies that are providing goods and services
I look for the global economy. It has this dra-

matic forecast: “The pandemic is expected
to plunge most countries into recession in
in demand during the pandemic are booming—and Sea
offers three of them: online shopping, online games and
online payments. It is a Singapore-born success story, and
2020, with per capita income contracting in also created two other billionaires aside from Li with the
the largest fraction of countries globally since 1870.” hockey-stick rise of Sea shares.
Let that date sink in—1870. Figures that have come out More stories of success, 200 of them, can be found in this
since June have borne out the World Bank’s projection. Sin- issue with the annual Best Under A Billion list of the top-
gapore’s second quarter GDP, released in August, showed a performing listed companies across the region with sales
year-on-year decline of 13.2%. It is reportedly the largest under $1 billion. Now is a true test of these companies’ abil-
shrinkage, by percent, in the country’s 55-year history. ity to perform under pressure, and one hopes, and expects,
Even the savviest entrepreneurs have been caught off they should be well prepared to weather the pandemic.
guard by the severity of this downturn. Real estate inves- As shown in this issue, while there are plenty of dismal
tor Goodwin Gaw said in a recent Forbes Asia Next Fron- data out there, an examination of individual economies,
tiers Webinar: “I never would have imagined, with 36 companies and entrepreneurs provides a more nuanced
hotels spanning from Bora Bora in the South Pacific, to picture. And Forbes Asia will continue to champion those
Japan, all the way to New York and Spain, we would have who are finding a way to survive and even thrive in the
33 hotels closed.” midst of the pandemic. As always, comments welcome at
The pandemic started as a healthcare threat, with the [email protected].
global economy becoming collateral damage. Now as the
world adjusts the new normal, the narrative seems to be
shifting toward a greater focus on overcoming the economic
fallout, as the pandemic stretches into the second half of
the year.
There are some glimmers of hope, at least for Asia. The
same World Bank report predicts that the average growth in
the East Asia and Pacific economies will be only 0.5% this
year, relatively mild compared to a 5.2% contraction fore-
cast for the global economy.
Another positive sign is Singapore’s 50 Richest list in this
issue—whose total wealth rose from last year, to $167 bil- JUSTIN DOEBELE
lion from $130 billion. The total was boosted by gains in EDITOR, FORBES ASIA
wealth for just under half of those on the list, and the inclu-
sion of some ultra-wealthy new entrants.
One of those who helped add to this wealth total was
billionaire Forrest Li. Shares of the company he cofound-
ed, Sea Ltd., have had an amazing run on the New York
Stock Exchange over the past year. The reason is simple: [email protected]

TECH CONNECTOR
By Rich Karlgaard
8 This Time Is Different. Really.

Are technology stocks in a —from movies to agriculture to
bubble? The Nasdaq composite national defense. Many of the
index, home to tech superstars winners are Silicon Valley-style
like Amazon, Apple, Facebook entrepreneurial technology com-
and Microsoft, is up more than panies that are invading and
21% this year. The boom is not overturning established industry
just an American phenomenon. structures. Over the next 10 years,
China’s Alibaba is up 24%, Tai- I expect many more industries to
wan’s TSM 38%, Germany’s SAP be disrupted by software.”
20% and Australia’s Atlassian It was a bold vision. Many who
47%. The S&P 500 Semiconduc- read Andreesen’s essay then, in-
tor ETF is up 19% for 2020. cluding this columnist, wish they
All very impressive. But one had acted and invested more ag-
category of tech stocks has sur- gressively. The good news is that
passed all others. These stocks are what the U.S. firm Bes- there is still time. At start of 2020, the biggest business
semer Venture Partners calls “emerging cloud” companies. story was the accelerating rate of business adaptation forced
In 2013, Bessemer created its BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud by underlying technologies—Cloud, Edge, AI and 5G—that
Index, or EmCloud, to track returns in the cloud sector. were evolving and converging quickly and weaponizing dis-
This year, EmCloud’s index of 52 stocks—which includes ruption. Then came Covid. The idea that the pandemic’s
fast-growers like Adobe, Atlassian, Crowdstrike, Service- slowing effect on the economy would also slow technology
Now and Zoom, but excludes large cloud incumbents like adoption was mistaken.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle—is up 65%. In hundreds of recent conversations I’ve had with CEOs,
To repeat: Are EmCloud stocks (and tech stocks overall) CFOs, entrepreneurs and board members, I’ve heard the
in a bubble? Value investors say so: EmCloud’s median mar- same story. Adaptation now tops every CEO’s priority list.
ket-cap-to-sales ratio is 18, which at first glance looks awful- How work is done in the new normal, how product devel-
ly bubbly. But look closer and you’ll see something else: the opment occurs, how companies go to market and sell, how
annual growth rates and trailing, 12-month free-cash-flow they protect their balance sheet while investing in the fu-
margins of most EmCloud stocks are very strong. Take net- ture—every CEO sees no future without rapid technology
work security firm Crowdstrike. Its free cash-flow margin is workarounds and adaptation.
17% while its growth rate is 82%. While Crowdstrike’s future ServiceNow’s CEO, Bill McDermott, told me this: “Today,
growth rates will slow, it’s also likely that its free cash-flow every leader of business knows that the only way to win is
margins will increase, since Crowdstrike’s gross margins are to get to the future much faster. If you don’t feel the need
over 70% and are improving. for speed, you haven’t woken up yet.” McDermott predicts
So the correct answer is, yes, tech stocks and the EmCloud $3 trillion will be invested in digital transformation over the
index are very richly valued. But, no, they do not form a tech next few years. The clock has started.
bubble like that in 1999. These stocks represent companies
ANDRIY ONUFRIYENKO/GETTY IMAGES
that are changing business, education, medicine and society Numbers were calculated at U.S. market close, August 5, 2020.
at warp speed, and most are financially strong.
Note that EmCloud is not just this year’s fashion. The index Rich Karlgaard is editor at large at Forbes.
is up 835% since its formation in August 2013. But its glorious As an author and global futurist, he has
published several books, the latest of
future was foretold two years earlier when Marc Andreesen, which is Late Bloomers, a groundbreaking
a software entrepreneur and venture capitalist, wrote a now- exploration of what it means to be a late
famous essay titled “Why Software Is Eating The World.” bloomer in a culture obsessed with SAT
scores and early success. For his past
As Andreessen wrote: “More and more major businesses columns and blogs visit our website at
are being run on software and delivered as online services www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard.

ECONOMICS MATTERS
By Yuwa Hedrick-Wong
Households Hold
the Keys to Recovery 9
In today’s extreme uncertainty, lands. In many Asian countries, the

we may do better looking back- corresponding GDP impact will be
ward for a glimpse of the future. lower, between 2% and 2.5%.
One such backward-looking lens Festering troubles in global trade
is household debt in the decade will make domestic consumption
prior to Covid-19. In countries even more pivotal to economic
with high and rising household recovery. Through our backward-
debt, consumers tend not to spend looking lens, we can discern three
even when given handouts by the different groups of countries. The
government. The excess cash tends first is made up of Australia, Can-
to go instead toward either pay- ada, the Netherlands and the three
ing down debt or saving for rainy Nordic countries, all of which have
days. This means that consumer high—and rising—household debt,
spending going forward is likely to combined with a high share of con-
be weak, and consumer confidence sumer spending relative to GDP.
wobbly and fragile. This in turn FESTERING TROUBLES Keynesian fiscal stimulus in these
will have far-reaching ramifica- IN GLOBAL TRADE MAKE countries will fail to induce their
tions in the post Covid-19 recovery. DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION highly indebted households to in-
The view through this backward- EVEN MORE PIVOTAL TO crease spending. And because of
looking lens, however, isn’t uni- ECONOMIC RECOVERY. its high share in overall GDP, weak
form. It varies widely from country consumer spending will under-
to country. In Australia and in Can- mine these countries’ recoveries.
ada, for instance, household debt as a percentage of GDP The second group is made up of other OECD countries,
rose alarmingly to over 100% between 2010 and 2019. In including the U.K. and the U.S., where household debt
Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, household is lower, but where consumer spending still represents
debt in 2019 stood at 128%, 103%, 110% and 92% of their a high proportion of GDP. In these countries, consumer
respective GDPs. In contrast, Germany, Spain, the U.K., spending can still drive recovery, and so fiscal stimulus
and to a lesser extent the U.S., household debt declined may prove effective.
over the same time period, dropping to between 70% and The third group comprises the emerging markets of Asia.
80% of GDP by 2019. In emerging Asia—including China, Because both household debt remains relatively low and
India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand—household debt because consumer spending is still small, fiscal stimulus
is much lower. will prove more effective at ramping up consumer spend-
Since consumer spending is a major component of GDP, ing and driving recovery. Best of all, fiscal stimulus in these
consumer spending can have an important impact on overall economies will boost consumer spending’s share of their
growth. According to the World Bank, consumer spending GDP, making their domestic economies more robust and
on average accounts for 60% of GDP in OECD countries, less reliant on exports.
higher in the U.S. and U.K. at 66% and 68%, respectively.
It’s even higher in Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and
Yuwa Hedrick-Wong is Chief Economics
Sweden at 71%, 69%, 71% and 68% respectively. Consumer Commentator for Forbes Asia. He is also a
spending is relatively lower, by comparison, in China, Indo- visiting scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School
MHJ/GETTY IMAGES
of Public Policy, National University of

nesia, Malaysia and Thailand—between 40% and 50% of Singapore. Having worked as an economist
GDP. Everything else being equal, a 5% change in consumer across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East
spending—higher or lower—will push GDP up or down 3% and Africa in the past 25 years, he regularly
writes columns about the global economy for
on average in OECD countries, 3.3% in the US and UK, and Forbes Asia. Views expressed are his own. He
around 3.5% in the three Nordic nations and the Nether- can be reached at: [email protected].

ENTREPRENEURS
By Yue Wang
10
Master of Mystery
WA NG N I N G is readying his fast-growing, Beijing-based company Pop Mart
for an IPO—and an expansion beyond China.
W What’s in the box? No

one’s quite sure. And that’s the mystery, fun and
immense commercial promise of Pop Mart, a
fast-growing Beijing-based toy company. It sells
its products—typically small figurines that cost
about $8—in so-called “blind boxes” that don’t
reveal the exact toy inside. “This is the trend of
the younger generation,” says Wang Ning, Pop
Mart’s 33-year-old founder, seated in his Beijing
office amid rows of his creations.
Pop Mart sold enough Labubus (rabbit-like
creatures with pastel-colored fur and a set of
monster’s teeth), Dimoos (aliens with puffs of
cotton candy-shaped hair) and other toys to
bring in roughly $240 million in revenue last
year, doubling from 2018. The 10-year-old com-
pany is profitable with net income at $63 mil-
lion. It’s now considering going public with a
Hong Kong listing after a $100 million funding
round in April placed a $2.5 billion valuation on
the firm.
“The company’s vision is (to become) a global
leader in entertainment and pop culture,” says
Lisa Yuan, an investor at Beijing investment
bank China Renaissance, which backed Pop
Mart’s fundraising in May. Those possibilities,
POP MART
she says, include adapting intellectual property

into movie and other story formats, a common
FORBES ASIA
part of the toy industry lifecycle. Forbes figures to create his own thing. On a trip to Hong Kong,
Wang’s 56% in the business is worth $1.2 billion, he noticed a popular retail chain called LOG-ON
and Wang sees the company only growing from that sold a mishmash of toys, cosmetics and sta-
here. “We are considering a lot of things,” he says. tionery. He figured a similar format might work
He’s been pondering how to build Pop Mart on the mainland.
Wang Ning has been
known to obsess over since graduating in 2009 from Zhengzhou Uni- In 2010, he rounded up some college friends— 11
everything from the versity, where he studied advertising. (As for the convincing them to pool their savings together—
correct height of a
display table in a rest of his background, Wang likes to keep that a and opened the first Pop Mart store in a shopping
ENTREPRENEURS
Pop Mart store to the mystery, too, and steadfastly refuses to discuss it.) mall near Beijing’s Zhongguancun neighbor-
wattage of the lights.
“The store itself is He worked for a year at China-based Sina Corp., hood, a hub for tech companies. At first, it too
an accumulation of a digital media company that runs the country’s sold many different types of products, similar
a decade of experi-
ence,” he says. Twitter clone, Weibo, but found himself wanting to LOG-ON, sourced from other brands just as
12
ENTREPRENEURS
Wang had seen LOG-ON do. But he scrambled A Pop Mart toy store That stage began to quickly take form. With
in China, where a
to manage inventory, staff and customer service, giant Labubu (a Wong and Molly onboard starting in 2016, Pop
finding it hard to even break even. One type of fanged, rabbit-like Mart’s sales began to pick up, reaching $22 mil-
creature) looms in the
product at Pop Mart proved to be a runaway front window. lion in 2017, then $73 million a year later. Pop
success. “At that time, toys were our best-selling Mart would swiftly ramp up to dozens of differ-
category,” he says. “We gradually discontinued ent toy lines (even the company’s spokesperson
other products, and in 2014, we focused exclu- has lost count), but Molly was such a hit that
sively on toys.” Wang shaved off a slice of equity in Pop Mart—
To move forward, Wang drew inspiration a 2% stake worth about $50 million—to keep
from another source: gashapon vending ma- Wong designing more of the toys.
chines in Japan. These gashapons dispense toys While many of the toys come in the blind boxes,
at random in little, clear canisters—quite like customers know which of the series they’re buy-
the red-colored ones that spit out gumballs and ing, so they have a vague sense of what the figurine
little toys in the U.S. Wang liked the element of inside will look like. For instance, Molly dolls look
surprise but wanted to sell his products in more nothing like the fanged rabbits from the Labubu
upscale packaging. He began approaching art- line or the aliens from Dimoo. Each of these se-
ists to develop toy lines for him, noticing a Hong ries has a different vibe thanks to the 25 artists
Kong-based Kenny Wong, who already started who have contributed designs for Pop Mart; each
selling a doll called Molly. The little girl with artist gets a cut of the sales their work generates.
turquoise, button-shaped eyes and a blond bob But no series comes close to Wong’s Molly series,
already had a small, passionate group of fans. which accounted for 27% of 2019 sales.
Wang offered Wong the chance to make Molly a Wang has started hosting toy shows—long
POP MART
Pop Mart line. “I told Kenny, ‘You need a bigger staples in the West—in China to find new tal-
stage,’” Wang says. ent. With these creatives, Wang tries his best to

maintain a hands-off style. “We will give some cially sold beyond China, but its products can be
advice related to consumer trends,” he said. “But purchased through Alibaba’s global e-commerce
we respect the artists’ wishes.” That said, Wang is platform Aliexpress, and some items have shown
finely attuned to the other minute details of his up on Amazon and eBay. Figuring out an inter-
company. When traveling abroad, he spends time national strategy is probably Wang’s top priority,
studying the shopping districts and store formats and that won’t be easy. “You can’t blindly copy 13
within those foreign cities. He’s been known to the format from China to create something that
obsess over everything from the correct height of works for foreign customers,” cautions Jason Yu,
ENTREPRENEURS
a display table in a Pop Mart store to the wattage a general manager at Kantar Worldpanel, a retail
of the lights. “The store itself is an accumulation consultancy. “There is a chance of success if the
of a decade of experience,” he says. “We display company starts by moving (within) Asia, for ex-
so many different dolls in a small space, and we ample, [with] Southeast Asia first.”
spend a lot of time on that alone.” The company does plan to expand in Asia, Eu-
Pop Mart now has 114 stores, all of which were rope and the U.S., but citing IPO confidentiality
forced to close temporarily this year as China rules, Wang declined to discuss more of his plans.
dealt with the coronavirus outbreak. They have If devoutly loyal customers like Nicole Song, 38,
since reopened, and Wang says sales at those are any indication, then Pop Mart may well find
stores have bounced back somewhat. Fortunately love in other parts of the world. Song works as
for him, Pop Mart’s e-commerce business has an HR manager at a financial firm in Beijing and
been exploding, too. In 2017, less than 10% of the spends much of her leisure time researching and
company’s revenue came over the internet. Last hunting down Pop Mart toys. If she can’t secure
year, almost a third of its sales were web-based, the one she wants at a store, she scours the web
sold through online channels including the com- for it, often turning to Alibaba’s digital flea mar-
pany’s Paqu platform and Alibaba’s Tmall shop- ket, Xianyu. There, some Pop Mart toys have sold
ping site. for hundreds of dollars.
Pop Mart is not the only seller of blind boxes, Wang wouldn't be “Blind boxes are so much different from what I
but it has a lead. According to industry-research where he is today have seen in the past,” says Song. “I like the toys’
without popular blond
firm Frost and Sullivan, Pop Mart has 8.5% of doll Molly; it is by far design, and when I open the boxes, the experi-
the market; its next closest rival, which was not his biggest seller, ence is a bit of a gamble.” Much like Wang’s bet
more than one fourth
named, had 7.7%. For now, Pop Mart isn’t offi- of annual sales. on others being up for the hunt.
POP MART

ENTREPRENEURS
By William Baldwin Photograph by Tim Pannell for Forbes
14
The Bureaucrat Wrestler
While the hospitality industry is troubled, WAR RE N M E Y ER ’s campgrounds are doing fine.
W Warren Meyer, hospital-

ity entrepreneur, looks out with pity on his in-
dustry. “There are restaurants that are closing for
good,” he says. “Airlines have to give up half their
a third of his 150 locations were gearing up to
open, and he’s anticipating that he will break
even this year, which counts as a big win for his
decimated field in 2020.
It boils down to the old real estate axiom of lo-
cation, location, location. While it may be years
before people crowd into a hotel lobby, they are
clamoring to get into his establishments: Meyer’s
Recreation Resource Management, or RRM,
runs campgrounds and trailheads on publicly
Warren Meyer, not
far from his home
office in Phoenix.
While some travel
companies are off
95%, his bookings
for June were up 5%
from last year.
seats.” Relatively speaking, he’s prospering: As owned parkland in eight states. His clients: the
the May 25 Memorial Day holiday approached, U.S. Forest Service, state and county park de-

partments and dam owners like the Tennessee Valley Au- To locked-down America, the great outdoors never looked so appetizing.
thority. They are sometimes grudging partners, a reflection
of the belief among environmentalists and policymakers
that there is something villainous about a capitalist making
a profit off public land. But as predictably as autumn leaves
falling, government agencies running short of cash want to
discuss a lease. 15
At every location, Meyer says, he pays more in rent to
the government than he keeps for himself as profit. Most
ENTREPRENEURS
of those agencies were losing money on the campground
before handing it over to RRM. The pandemic is a mortal
threat to the travel industry, but not to RRM. Most of its
visitors (2.4 million last year) live within a gas tank’s drive of
their destination.
To locked-down America, the great outdoors never looked
so appetizing. At one of his Arizona camps, Meyer says, a
hundred frustrated customers jumped over closed gates to
illegally use a park. “A lot of government campgrounds were
built with social distancing as the ethic,” he says. The price is camper (Meyer settled a damage claim); an alligator took a
right, too: usually between $22 and $26 a night, with a 50% liking to a Florida swimming hole used by children. But for
discount for Forest Service visitors, roughly a third of them, Meyer, the scariest critters walk on two legs.
who whip out a senior-citizen pass. A site with a hookup to RRM took over a park in California suffering from a se-
electric, water and sewer lines is a few bucks extra. rious case of deferred maintenance. Government inspectors
Economic chaos, paradoxically, may even help Meyer came in and condemned a deck with rotting wood. Meyer
expand. In the recession a decade ago, as legislative ap- obediently had the deck removed. Then he was cited for re-
propriations for maintenance and improvements dried up, moving the deck without a deck-removal permit. “I thought I
state park departments begged him to sign on and pay for was going to jail,” he says. He escaped that contretemps only
amenities like cabins and new bathrooms. Which he’s will- to get in trouble with California authorities again for putting
ing to do, if the lease is long enough. His contracts run from a kiosk on a parking area. The offense: failing to do a soil
five years to 50. analysis. To satisfy the bureaucrats, RRM had the asphalt cut
Ask Meyer what magic he works to turn a government open, took a soil sample, then replaced the asphalt.
money loser into a private-sector moneymaker, and this Ferocious lawyers lurk everywhere, especially in Califor-
58-year-old libertarian will give you an earful. It boils down nia. A state law mandates a half-hour unpaid lunch break.
to this: A for-profit concessionaire is motivated to make an Some workers there asked Meyer, in writing, for permis-
operation more efficient. A government agency is motivated sion to work through their break so they could earn an
to make it less efficient. In the government, he says, “pay extra half-hour of pay. He agreed. Then a lawyer showed
and prestige are based on size and staffing.” up with demands for damages. The arrangement was in-
A government parks department hires environmental- valid because there has to be a separate lunch document for
science graduates who collect full-time salaries and costly each day rather than one document for all the days. Gotcha!
benefits. With rare exceptions, RRM hires retirees who live Meyer settled the case.
in their own RVs at a campground. A lot of them are cou- He refused to settle the lawsuit from the California work-
ples who split up the chores. Most of them are on Medicare. er who claimed she was intimidated by her manager—who,
They work part-time and start at minimum wage. as it happens, was her sister. But getting the case dismissed
Worker exploitation? Maybe not. Most of the 400 work- cost Meyer $25,000. The absurdities of contending with the
ers return for the next season. Meyer gets 5,000 applicants government as landlord, regulator and adjudicator would
for the 50 to 100 vacancies. exhaust the patience of most business owners. For those
It was spluttering about left-wing economics that got who can withstand the torment, though, the rewards are
Meyer ensnared in park management. Not quite two de- ample enough. Meyer says that in a good year RRM clears
THOMAS BARWICK/GETTY IMAGES
cades ago he published a blog post about privatizing gov- a high single-digit profit margin on revenue of $14 million.
ernment services. A reader who owned a park concession Meyer has 6,000 camping spots in his empire. There are
company wanted to know if Meyer had the courage of his another 380,000 sites on public land that he could go after,
convictions. Buy me out! Meyer did. and he aims to double the size of his operation within a few
And so, at age 40, Meyer left freelance consulting and ap- years. “If I wanted to sit on the beach I could sell for three
plied his degrees, in engineering from Princeton and busi- times Ebitda,” he says. “But I wouldn’t be able to put the
ness administration from Harvard, to making park visitors money in Treasuries and get the same cash flow.” He plans
comfortable. It’s a hazardous line of work. A bear slashed a to keep at it, braving the elements.

ENTREPRENEURS
By Alex Knapp Photographs by Phil Kline for Forbes
16
Cleaning Up
Houston-based S OLU GE N is making cheaper, more effective industrial chemicals to help
A
scrub everything from pools and hot tubs to oil and gas companies’ wastewater.
A long-standing poker
game with a group of University of Texas South-
western medical students in Dallas brought Gaur-
ab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt together. Wenly
Ruan, Chakrabarti’s dissection lab partner and
Hunt’s then-girlfriend (now wife), was the link.
But soon Chakrabarti, an M.D./Ph.D. (or “Mud-
Phud,” in medical school parlance) candidate re-
searching a drug candidate for pancreatic cancer,
and Hunt, a graduate student in chemical engi-
neering at MIT, were geeking out over science.
“Sean was terrible at poker,” says Chakrab-
arti, now 31. Though Hunt kept losing, he con-
tinued to play for years, as he returned to Dallas
from Boston to visit Ruan. And as they played,
Chakrabarti and Hunt continued their geek-out.
Chakrabarti was researching enzymes found in
cancer cells that produce hydrogen peroxide, and
he wondered if that process might apply to Hunt’s
research on improving traditional chemical man-
ufacturing. Hunt scoffed at the idea. “I was, like,
‘There’s no way an enzyme could be used in an
industrial, long-scale chemical process,’” recalls
Hunt, also 31. “But as we kept talking and diving
Gaurab Chakrabarti
into it, Gaurab convinced me.” on fertilizers: "We
Six years later, in 2016, Chakrabarti and Hunt believe we have a
cost-competitive
submitted their idea for a new business, which replacement, which
they called Solugen, to an MIT pitch competi- also biodegrades,
which many chemicals
tion. They won $10,000 as a finalist. Those funds in agriculture do not.”
allowed them to buy PVC pipe from Home Depot

and pumps off eBay to build their first reactor they signed a deal with wet-wipe manufacturer
system. They grew gene-edited yeast to produce Diamond Wipes to launch a new bio-based brand
the enzymes Chakrabarti had discovered—sort called Ode to Clean. Diamond manufactured the
of like a craft brewery for the $2 trillion global wipes, while Solugen provided hydrogen peroxide
industrial chemicals market—and then used and marketing. Because they’re made from plant
those enzymes to make hydrogen peroxide. In starch, the wipes are biodegradable and don’t emit
this way, the Houston-based startup brought bi- toxic fumes. Chakrabarti says they didn’t really 17
ology to the oil patch, combining their innovative care about the wipes per se, but figured the simple
bio-based peroxide with other bio-based chemi- product would help Solugen sell to bigger indus-
cals for use in everything from spa cleaning to trial customers. “It was a Trojan Horse for us, with
disinfecting wipes to wastewater treatments for an aim of selling the brand and getting a supplier
oil-and-gas runoff. contract,” he says.
Solugen's revenue reached $12 million last year,
largely from more than 30 mostly Texas-based
energy and industrial customers (which it won’t
name, citing competitive concerns) that use its
wastewater treatment product. Chakrabarti and
Hunt—alumni of the Forbes Under 30 class of
2017—expect revenue to surpass $30 million this
year, though the company is not yet profitable as
it spends heavily to expand.
Solugen raised $30 million in venture capital in
April, and $68 million altogether, from Founders
Fund, Valor Equity Partners and other investors,
at a valuation of $250 million. Those numbers
gained Solugen a spot on this year’s Forbes Next
Billion-Dollar Startups list, one of 25 companies
we think have the best shot of becoming unicorns.
“I’ve seen so many pitches in my life, and I love it
when I hear something I’ve never heard before,”
says Founders Fund’s Brian Singerman, who first
invested in the company in 2017.
When they started, both Chakrabarti and Hunt
were still finishing their Ph.D. dissertations.
Their original MacGyvered plant was big enough
to produce just 19 liters of hydrogen peroxide a
day. They marketed their first water treatment
product, called PeroxyZen, for use in pools, hot
tubs and spas after a group of float-spa owners
contacted them on Facebook. Their sales pitch
was that the product was petroleum-free, a boon
for spas that like to market being “natural.” But
what kept customers coming back was that the
product worked better than traditional chemical
cleaners. That was due to an interesting discovery
they made early on: The enzymatic process that
created the company’s bioperoxide also generated
organic acids that cleaned out mineral buildup
that can clog and corrode pipes over time.
The spa-cleaning business was a nice, niche op-
eration, and in the early days they made the rounds
to customers in their Subaru, dropping off 19-liter “What’s unique is that
from essentially just
buckets of cleaning solution. But Chakrabarti and a feedstock sugar, we
can create a whole
Hunt had bigger plans. In winter 2017, they joined portfolio of chemicals,"
the Y Combinator accelerator, one of the rare says Sean Hunt.
startups outside software to get in. Later that year,

bon offset. The elder Chakrabarti swore they’d
never find a better space. After touring 20 more
sites over the next month, Hunt finally agreed.
Solugen paid nearly $3 million for the plant. It
can currently produce about a tanker truck full
of product (or some 15 kiloliters) per week, and
18 Solugen is working to get capacity cranked up to
multiple tanker trucks of product per day.
The size of the market for cleaning up waste-
ENTREPRENEURS
water is sizable, perhaps as big as $5 billion. The

process for drilling for oil and gas is a dirty one,
and generally yields large amounts of water con-
taminated with mineral scales. Regulators re-
quire this wastewater to be cleaned up before it’s
repurposed for industry or agriculture. But this
is a tough market, and Solugen faces competition
from major chemical conglomerates in what has
historically been largely a commodity business.
As with its spa cleaners, Solugen’s innovative
use of enzymes in its wastewater treatment keeps
mineral scales from building up on the water
pipes while also preventing corrosion. In one
case, Solugen tested its wastewater treatment
with an oil and gas customer that had seen 20%
reduced efficiency of its water injectors due to
iron-scale buildup, a problem that cost it more
than $29 million a year in lost revenue across the
oilfield. The result: Production increased at the
one well it was tested on without the need for ad-
ditional acid stimulation treatments.
As in the Iliad, the plan worked. With the help Solugen's first facility Unlike phosphates, such as hydroxyethylidene
was built with PVC
of a salesman they hired from oilfield services pipe from Home diphosphonic acid, or HEDP, there are also en-
giant Schlumberger in fall 2018, they were able Depot and required vironmental advantages. The process of making
manual operation;
to market wastewater cleaning products—that the newest iteration 900 kilograms of Solugen’s wastewater treatment
used the same chemicals as the spa cleaner—to is automated. sequesters the equivalent of 1.2 metric tonnes of
oil drillers. “It sounds super-silly, but wipes got carbon dioxide, versus 2.7 tonnes emitted for
us into the industrials game,” says Chakrabarti. HEDP, according to a report from Life Cycle
Solugen got out of the wipes business in sum- Analysis. That’s an advantage for companies
mer 2018 when Diamond Wipes acquired Ode evaluated by governments and investors on en-
to Clean for less than $10 million; the company vironmental impact. The runoff from phosphate-
continues to get a small, but stable, piece of its based cleaners also causes algal blooms, harming
revenue from supplying Diamond Wipes with local ecosystems and fisheries, a reason why the
hydrogen peroxide. U.S. and the EU have banned phosphates from
By September 2018, Solugen was doing so well consumer detergents.
that it needed a bigger space and, with a $19 mil- Solugen can tout all those advantages as long
lion funding round in the works, had the cash to as it can match the price of HEDP. “We go head
cover expansion. On the Loopnet commercial to head with phosphates,” Hunt says. “We are not
real estate site, Hunt scoured the Houston area premium.” While the pandemic shuttered many
for options. A half hour later, he was touring a manufacturing plants, Solugen’s operations in
decommissioned chemical manufacturing plant Texas were considered essential and remained
that had been used to turn oil into plastics, with open. Demand for its wastewater cleanup surged
Chakrabarti’s father, Gopendu, a chemical en- because of a reduction in fracking, which uses the
gineer and entrepreneur. The hulking factory, contaminated water from oil drilling and does not
on a 2ha site, still had intact piping and tanks, require cleanup. The founders estimate demand
and even boasted a 4,000sqm apple and pear for wastewater cleanup rose at least 50% since
orchard, planted by the previous owner as a car- March, and they expect that to continue even

if fracking resumes, because as oil drilling sites to replace phosphate-based cleaners could also
age, more water tends to be unearthed. Though let them reinvent fertilizers by adding essential
low oil prices have led to hundreds of rigs being minerals and metals to soil. The fertilizer market,
shut down over the past year, billions of gallons like the wastewater one, is enormous, at least $175
of water continue to require treatment every year. billion, and has long relied on chemical solutions
During the pandemic, Solugen also began pro- despite their drawbacks.
ducing hand sanitizer by combining its hydrogen “We believe we have a cost-competitive replace- 19
peroxide with alcohol from a local ethanol facility. ment, which also biodegrades where many chemi-
The company produced more than 379 kiloliters, cals in agriculture do not,” Chakrabarti says. He
ENTREPRENEURS
most of which it donated to local healthcare facili- expects regulatory approval soon from the U.S.
ties facing shortages with the help of the nonprofit Environmental Protection Agency, pending the
group Operation USA. It plans to increase produc- results of tests in Australia, South America and
tion of hand sanitizer to more than 3,700 kiloliters the U.S., that would allow Solugen to begin selling
by year-end, and, with the product in high demand, the product by the end of the year. Thanks to all
is considering commercial opportunities. this, Chakrabarti and Hunt are confident enough
These days, wastewater treatment accounts for in expansion that they’re planning to add at least
some 80% of Solugen’s revenue, and Chakrabarti 20 employees to Solugen’s now 70-person work-
and Hunt see vast room for growth. To expand, force by mid-2021.
Solugen is building a series of what Chakrabarti Longer term, the pair figure on continuing to
calls “mini-mills,” a term adopted from the steel in- investigate the workings of enzymes made by
dustry that he uses to refer to small, localized pro- various cancers, and engineering ones that have
duction plants that can serve the needs of regional evolved to be particularly good at making valu-
customers within a 320km radius rather than re- able products. “It’s like the early days of software
quiring large-scale distribution. The first one, in development,” Hunt says. They are investigating
Slaton, Texas, opened in 2019 and is now devoted a dozen or so enzymes now, each of which could
entirely to hand sanitizer. A second one is planned make a different target chemical in tandem with
for the Houston area. Each is located near an etha- biologically produced hydrogen peroxide. That
nol plant, from which Solugen can buy the corn success, Hunt figures, makes losing all those
waste it needs to power its biological production. poker games worthwhile. “It’s been quite a wild
Next up, Chakrabarti and Hunt see potential in ride,” he says. “Nobody thought poker would lead
agriculture, an area where efforts to replace chem- to this, that’s for sure.”
icals with biology have proliferated. The two be-
lieve that the same technology that allowed them With additional reporting by Christopher Helman.
In its early days,

Solugen’s cofounders
carried 19-liter jugs
to customers in their
Subaru. Today, they
produce enough for
tanker trucks.

20
The annual Best Under A Billion list spotlights 200 publicly listed small and midsized companies in the Asia-
Pacific region with sales under $1 billion. These companies have track records of exceptional corporate
performance, with one Covid-19 caveat: the list is based on full-year data as of July 7 and does not fully
reflect the impact from the pandemic-led downturn. The companies on this list have scored above their
peers in a composite ranking that includes sales and profit growth, low debt levels and robust governance.
The criteria also ensured a geographic diversity of companies from across the region. By using metrics
both quantitative and qualitative, the final list of 200 is truly a select group.
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

COMPANY INDUSTRY TERRITORY SALES INCOME VALUE
Accel Group Construction Hong Kong 67 9 75

Accrete Inc. Telecom Japan 13 2 42
Acrysil Kitchen fixtures India 39 3 27
AEM Holdings [2] Electronic components Singapore 237 39 640
After You Hotels & Restaurants Thailand 38 8 256
AK Medical Holdings Healthcare China 134 39 3,601
Alkindo Naratama Paper & Packaging Indonesia 78 4 30
Alla Industrial machinery Thailand 28 3 25
Alufluoride Chemicals India 11 1 13
AME Elite Consortium Construction Malaysia 91 15 170
Anhui Genuine New Materials Packaging China 96 29 2,419
Arwana Citramulia Tiles & Ceramics Indonesia 152 15 188
Asia United Bank Banking Philippines 319 86 461
Aspeed Technology [7] Semiconductors Taiwan 80 27 1,465
Auras Technology Electronic components Taiwan 331 31 539
Australian Ethical Investment Financial services Australia 29 5 538
Barrel Co. Apparel South Korea 51 6 66
Beijing Wanji Technology Software & IT equipment China 481 126 1,360
Beijing Zuojiang Technology Networking equipment China 31 13 927
BrainPad Software Japan 51 8 311
Business Online E-commerce Thailand 16 5 94
C-Link Squared Document management Malaysia 17 3 109
C&G Hi Tech Semiconductors South Korea 110 10 63
Carabao Group Beverages Thailand 481 81 3,503
Century Land Construction Vietnam 100 17 64
[x] Number of consecutive years on the list, including this year. Returnee ALL VALUES IN $ MILLIONS

D E E PA K N I T R I T E
India-based chemicals maker Deepak Nitrite H Y P E B E A ST
had record full-year earnings of $86 million, From a sneaker blog two decades ago to a
due to increased demand for its isopropyl site generating HK$751 million ($96 million)
alcohol, a key ingredient in sanitizer. The in annual revenue, Hong Kong’s Hypebeast
company is also benefiting as global buyers, saw its digital content and advertising
worried about the U.S.-China trade war, look sales rise 12% in its latest fiscal year, in-
for chemical suppliers outside China. cluding from its e-commerce site HBX.
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

China Bright Culture Media China 69 21 452 21

China Education Group Educational services Hong Kong 285 86 3,352
China Grand Pharma & Healthcare [2]

Pharmaceuticals Hong Kong 841 147 2,510
Chlitina Holding Beauty & Healthcare Taiwan 166 46 572
Chularat Hospital Healthcare Thailand 166 23 852
Clover Corp. Healthcare Australia 55 7 261
Compumedics Healthcare Australia 30 3 52
Coweaver Telecom South Korea 97 18 78
Cross-Harbour (Holdings) Transportation infrastructure Hong Kong 89 93 530
Crown Asia Chemicals Plastics Philippines 28 3 24
Dadi Early-Childhood Education Educational services Taiwan 35 23 299
Danawa Software South Korea 143 20 333
Deepak Nitrite Chemicals India 597 86 958
Dilmah Ceylon Tea Tea Sri Lanka 65 10 70
Dolat Investments Securities trading India 22 10 113
Dong Hai of Ben Tre Paper & Packaging Vietnam 62 8 86
Double Standard Inc. Marketing Japan 34 7 330
Dream International Toys Hong Kong 507 63 250
DSC Investment Financial services South Korea 12 5 44
ECHO Marketing Marketing South Korea 95 27 535
Eggriculture Foods Eggs Singapore 34 4 8
Egis Technology Software Taiwan 238 28 497
Ekachai Medical Care Healthcare Thailand 29 5 85
ELAN Microelectronics Semiconductors Taiwan 307 81 1,352
Energy One Energy trading Australia 11 1 73
Espressif Systems Semiconductors China 109 23 2,586
Essex Bio-Technology [2] Pharmaceuticals Hong Kong 163 39 410
Excelliance MOS [2] Semiconductors Taiwan 53 9 143
Extreme Co. Games developer Japan 66 9 82
Feroze1888 Mills Terry cloth & Yarn Pakistan 215 44 189
Fire Rock Holdings [2] Computer games China 44 30 165
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Healthcare New Zealand 824 186 13,492
Foodwell Corp. Food & Beverages South Korea 123 27 42
Fortune Shoes Footwear Bangladesh 18 3 28
Frontier Springs Industrial parts India 14 2 15
Frontken Corp. Chemicals Malaysia 82 17 677
UNSPLASH
Global Standard Technology Semiconductors South Korea 144 15 156

JUMBO INTERACTIVE
Last year marked a watershed for this
34-year-old Australian lottery operator, as it
launched an online software platform for lot-
teries abroad. Net profit more than doubled
to A$26 million ($19 million) on a 64% sales
increase to A$65 million.
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

22 Grace Technology Software Japan 18 6 733

Gremz, Inc. Housing services Japan 142 14 315
H.G. Infra Engineering 313 23 174
THE LIST
Civil engineering India
Hang Chi Holdings Elder care Hong Kong 22 4 43

Hangzhou Onechance Tech E-commerce China 208 32 3,734
Hans Biomed Healthcare South Korea 58 9 182
Hexaware Technologies IT consulting India 793 91 1,338
HLscience Pharmaceuticals South Korea 110 17 246
Homeland Interactive Technology Software China 82 30 460
Huarchi Global Construction Hong Kong 58 6 64
Hypebeast Advertising Hong Kong 96 8 211
Icares Medicus Healthcare Taiwan 14 3 87
Indonesian Paradise Property Property developer Indonesia 64 143 542
Infomedia Software Australia 61 12 461
Integrated Research Ltd. Software Australia 72 16 489
International Games System Games developer Taiwan 171 64 1,950
IOL Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Chemicals & Drugs India 267 51 419
IPH Ltd. Legal services Australia 181 38 1,179
IR Japan Consulting Japan 71 22 1,859
Jasuindo Tiga Perkasa Specialized printing Indonesia 102 12 91
Jiangsu Canlon Building Materials Waterproofing China 168 20 985
JKN Global Media Media Thailand 55 8 107
Johore Tin Dairy & Packaging Malaysia 140 11 104
Jubilee Enterprise Jewelry Thailand 58 8 88
Jumbo Interactive Lottery operator Australia 47 19 532
Just Dial Search services India 134 38 326
PETER DAZELEY/GETTY IMAGES; THOMAS BARWICK/GETTY IMAGES

JYP Entertainment [2] Talent management South Korea 133 27 741
Kamakura Shinsho [2] Funeral services Japan 30 6 380
Kathmandu Holdings Clothing & Camping New Zealand 365 39 577
Kato (Hong Kong) Holdings Elder care Hong Kong 25 6 63
Kaveri Seed Seeds India 131 37 476
Khoon Group Construction Singapore 36 3 48
Kino Indonesia Food & Drugs Indonesia 331 37 348
Kip McGrath Education Centres Educational services Australia 12 2 38
Kitanotatsujin [3] Beauty & Healthcare Japan 93 18 725
Kossan Rubber Industries Rubber products Malaysia 535 54 3,265
Kuang Hong Arts Management Media Taiwan 52 7 50

KUA N G H O N G A R T S M A N A G E M E N T PA KU WO N J AT I
Taiwan’s Kuang Hong organized more than This Indonesian real estate
100 events last year—including concerts and developer returns to this
sporting events—and had a nearly sevenfold year’s list, after its diversified
rise in net profits to $7 million. It also has portfolio helped 2019 profits
services such as equipment rentals, talent to rise 7% to 2.7 trillion rupiah
management and ticket sales. ($192 million).
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

Laserbond Industrial services Australia 16 2 30 23

Lii Hen Industries Furniture Malaysia 202 19 115

Lotus Horizon Exteriors Hong Kong 31 4 51
Lvji Technology Software China 78 23 175
M&A Capital Partners Financial services Japan 114 36 1,216
Magellan Financial Group Financial services Australia 413 270 8,131
Magni-Tech Industries Clothing & Packaging Malaysia 288 29 212
Management Solutions Co. Management consulting Japan 36 3 216
Maxscend Microelectronics Semiconductors China 218 72 11,250
Maxvision Technology Inspection systems China 116 31 1,688
Medical Imaging Corp. Medical equipment Taiwan 16 3 35
Medikaloka Hermina Healthcare Indonesia 257 18 611
Metropolitan Land Property developer Indonesia 99 34 206
Mi Technovation Semiconductors Malaysia 46 14 500
Minwise Software South Korea 106 15 154
Mitake Information Software Taiwan 54 6 98
Mulia Boga Raya Cheese Indonesia 69 7 96
Nam Viet Corp. Metals & Seafood Vietnam 193 30 95
Nanjing Wondux Environmental Waste management China 111 18 538
Nath Bio-Genes Seeds India 40 7 83
Navin Fluorine International Chemicals India 150 58 1,144
Netbay Software Thailand 13 6 219
Netwealth Group Financial services Australia 69 25 1,530
Novarex Pharmaceuticals South Korea 136 13 282
OpenSys Machinery & Software Malaysia 25 3 57
Oriental Interest Property developer Malaysia 72 14 60
Over The Wire Holdings Telecom Australia 57 7 139
Pakuwon Jati [2] Property developer Indonesia 509 192 1,374
Park Systems Corp. Healthcare equipment South Korea 45 7 288
Pentamaster [4] Factory automation Malaysia 118 20 629
Perfect Group International Jewelry Hong Kong 100 22 71
Perfect Shape Medical Beauty Hong Kong 159 46 440
Phat Dat Real Estate Construction Vietnam 146 36 387
Phil Co. Property developer Japan 64 5 131
Plover Bay Technologies Telecom Hong Kong 46 12 140
PNE Solution Battery chargers South Korea 126 13 241
Poly Medicure Medical equipment India 97 14 359

REVENUE GROUP
This Malaysian fintech firm grew revenues
64% last year, to 58 million ringgit ($14 mil-
lion). It has enjoyed organic growth and new
sales from acquisitions, such as digital pay-
ments provider AnyPay and e-marketplace
Buymall Services.
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

24 Pro Medicus Healthcare Australia 36 14 1,983

Property For Industry Construction New Zealand 63 116 786
Prored Partners Financial services Japan 24 6 544
THE LIST
Protec Co. Semiconductors South Korea 154 32 212

PWR Holdings Auto parts Australia 47 10 308
Pylon [2] Construction Thailand 50 9 103
Ratchathani Hospital Healthcare Thailand 57 13 206
Renata Ltd. Pharmaceuticals Bangladesh 271 45 1,071
Revenue Group Software Malaysia 14 2 109
Rhom Bho Property Property developer Thailand 41 8 43
Ricksoft Software Japan 28 3 275
Sabina Lingerie Thailand 106 13 213
Sakar Healthcare Pharmaceuticals India 12 1 10
Sakura Development Property developer Taiwan 240 48 546
San Far Property Property developer Taiwan 164 51 156
Saracen Mineral Mining Australia 397 66 4,612
Sariguna Primatirta Bottled water Indonesia 77 9 386
Scales Corp. Logistics New Zealand 319 30 468
Scientex Packaging Malaysia 786 81 1,122
Seafco [2] Construction Thailand 98 13 136
Sensortek Technology Semiconductors Taiwan 155 43 1,302
Shanghai Friendess Electronics Automation China 54 36 2,847
Shenzhen Genvict Technologies Transportation systems China 408 127 1,209
Shri Jagdamba Polymers Textiles India 29 4 25
Siam Wellness [3] Spa operator Thailand 45 8 196
YAGI STUDIO/GETTY IMAGES; WITTHAYA PRASONGSIN/GETTY IMAGES

Siantar Top Food Indonesia 248 34 794
Sido Muncul Traditional medicine Indonesia 217 57 1,278
Singapore Exchange Financial services Singapore 666 286 6,314
SISB Educational services Thailand 35 7 286
Smaregi Software Japan 30 5 339
Snack Empire Food Singapore 18 3 23
SNK Corp. Software Japan 90 27 281
SPL Industries Textiles India 25 4 12
Square Pharmaceuticals Chemicals & Drugs Bangladesh 512 150 1,716
ST International Clothing & Textiles Hong Kong 24 4 13
Strike Co. Financial services Japan 46 12 936
Sunsuria Property developer Malaysia 129 33 89

SISB
Founded in 2001, SISB owns and operates five W E L B E , I N C.
private schools in Thailand. The schools’ intake This Japanese service provider saw net
of students rose 10% in 2019, boosting the profits rise by roughly a fifth, to ¥1.2 billion
company’s net profit 20% to 221 million baht ($11 million), in fiscal 2020. The firm pro-
($7 million). While the student tally rose again at vides services such as helping preschool
the start of the 2020 academic year, SISB cut its children with developmental disorders and
enrollment target because of the pandemic. long-term care for senior citizens.
COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

Suyog Telematics Telecom India 17 5 38 25

Systems Ltd. Software Pakistan 50 11 139

T.A.C. Consumer Beverages Thailand 49 5 98
Taseco Air Services Airport concessions Vietnam 49 8 100
TCI Co. Beauty & Healthcare Taiwan 309 65 1,132
Thailand Prime Property REIT Property investment Thailand 32 22 252
Thien Long Group Stationery Vietnam 140 14 117
Tian Chang Group Financial services Hong Kong 160 16 51
Town Ray Holdings Home appliances Hong Kong 65 8 40
Transcom Semiconductors Taiwan 18 5 172
Tyche Industries Pharmaceuticals India 10 2 17
Uchi Technologies Industrial services Malaysia 38 18 273
Ultrajaya Milk Beverages Indonesia 441 73 1,292
Union Auction Auctions Thailand 26 8 135
Union Gas Fuel Singapore 58 6 48
UWC Bhd. Construction Malaysia 35 9 538
Vitzrocell Batteries South Korea 114 17 297
Viva Biotech Pharmaceuticals China 47 38 2,172
Vivant Corp. Electricity Philippines 70 45 279
Voltronic Power Technology Solar equipment Taiwan 418 69 2,507
Wah Wo Holdings Exteriors Hong Kong 31 4 21
Welbe, Inc. Child & Elder care Japan 63 11 349
WNS (Holdings) Outsourcing India 927 117 2,770
Wuxi Biologics Pharmaceuticals China 577 147 23,503
YiChang HEC ChangJiang Pharma Pharmaceuticals China 901 278 1,769
YMT Co. Chemicals South Korea 82 11 211
ZillTek Technology Semiconductors Taiwan 45 5 264
DATA AS OF JULY 7, 2020

NATALIA GDOVSKAIA/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES
SOURCES: FACTSET, FORBES ASIA
METHODOLOGY
This list is meant to identify companies with long-term sustainable performance across a variety of metrics. From a universe
of 18,000 publicly traded companies in the Asia-Pacific region with annual revenue above $10 million and below $1 billion, only
these 200 companies made the cut. The companies on this list, which is unranked, were selected based on a composite score
that incorporated their overall track record in measures such as debt, sales and earnings growth over both the most recent
fiscal one- and three-year periods, and the strongest one- and five-year average returns on equity. Aside from quantitative
criteria, qualitative screens were used as well, such as excluding companies with serious governance issues, questionable
accounting, environmental concerns, management issues or legal troubles. State-controlled and subsidiary companies were
also excluded. The latest available full-year annual results on FactSet as of July 7, 2020, were used for numeric data. All other
research was done by Forbes Asia.

INVESTING
By Antoine Gara Photographs by Murdo MacLeod for Forbes
26
Optimism Rules
W
BAI L L IE G IF FOR D ’s stock picks have turned out to be perfect for the pandemic.
When analysts and

portfolio managers pitch ideas at Ed-
inburgh, Scotland, investment firm
Baillie Gifford, there’s one rule every-
one must follow. For the first 20 min-
utes, anyone speaking about the idea
has to be positive, contributing only
to the bullish case for the stock. Say
anything critical and you’re swiftly es-
corted from the room.
The optimism rule is designed to
thwart what the partners believe is a
natural tendency for smart people to
be skeptical and shoot down ideas pre-
maturely. But these days the rule takes
on even more meaning as despair over
the pandemic spreads. Like nearly ev-
eryone in the Western world, the firm’s
1,317 employees are no longer able to
congregate at its headquarters, where
an imposing sign over the entrance
reads ACTUAL INVESTORS THINK IN DE-
CADES. NOT QUARTERS.
“One of the things we feel is abso-
lutely incumbent on us at this mo-
ment is to encourage the companies
Baillie Gifford partner

James Anderson, pictured
in his Edinburgh garden,
prefers perennials.

we back to be brave,” says James Anderson, 60, a While private equity firms and corporate chiefs
co-manager of Baillie Gifford’s flagship strategies have spent the past decade making companies
and a 37-year veteran of the 112-year-old invest- lean and leveraged, Baillie Gifford’s stock pickers
ment firm. Baillie Gifford has gone so far as to ignore all that and seek out companies investing
mail letters to its portfolio companies, encourag- in research and technology. They particularly
ing CEOs to forestall layoffs and cost cutting. It like projects that might not be immediately prof-
even offered new capital so they could maintain itable but could propel the economy a decade 27
their growth plans. from now. Quantitative investing is all the rage,
It’s an unusual stance for a large asset man- but the Scottish firm is moving in the other di-
INVESTING
ager to take in a business landscape fraught with rection, trading little and spending its research
risks. But among fund managers, Baillie Gif- budget sponsoring literary prizes, investigating
ford, with its $245 billion under management, new philosophical ideas and endowing univer-
is an outlier. The firm pays little attention to sity chairs in genetics and computational biology.
traditional valuation metrics such as earnings Based in Edinburgh’s 18th-century “New Town,”
per share or PE ratios. It’s singularly focused on a short walk from the city’s medieval “Old Town,”
three things—growth, competitive advantage Baillie Gifford is too big and too old to be dis-
and staying power—and it doesn’t mind park- missed as simply lucky. The firm was founded in
ing its investors’ money in stocks that would 1908, shortly after the Panic of 1907, by Colonel
make value investors seasick. Here’s a sampling: Augustus Baillie and solicitor Carlyle Gifford. The
Zoom, the now-ubiquitous video-chat company, colonel had made his name fighting in the Second
which has a PE ratio of over 1,200; e-commerce Boer War, while his partner, Gifford, later became
upstart Shopify, over 50 times revenues; online
furniture merchant Wayfair, which lost $1 billion
in 2019, double that of the prior year. But these
very stocks, plus a good number of the 30 to 50 TO M O R R OW ’S FA A N G STO C KS ?
others held in each of their 14 mutual fund port- Baillie Gifford picks poised for post-pandemic success.
folios, are exactly the companies benefiting from
COMPANY BULLISH CASE
existing trends accelerating during the crisis.
Name a hot coronavirus stock, and Baillie Gif- Adyen NV Global payments platform
ford discovered it and built a massive position Denali Therapeutics Promising treatments for disorders like Alzheimer’s
before the virus spread. The firm has long-held Ecolab Boom times ahead for this office-cleaning-products firm
multibillion-dollar positions in Alibaba, Amazon, Reliance Industries May become the Amazon of India
Microsoft, Netflix and Tencent. Newer buys in- Sea Ltd. Tencent game distributor, e-commerce platform for Asia
clude Zoom, Covid-19 vaccine hopeful Moderna, SOURCE: BAILLIE GIFFORD
digital health upstart Teladoc and online text-
book seller Chegg. It’s a large shareholder in Way-
fair, which first plunged as Covid-19 spread, then known for helping finance Britain’s World War II
rose eightfold when sales skyrocketed as quaran- effort by selling the crown’s trove of overseas as-
tined customers made home improvements. Bail- sets, largely to investors in the U.S.
lie Gifford is also a top holder of surging Covid One of Baillie Gifford’s first trades was to lend
stocks Grubhub and Peloton, the cycling platform to lend to rubber plantations in the Malay Penin-
many are using to burn off their “quarantine 15” sula, believing Henry Ford’s pioneering Model T
pounds of weight gain. automobile would revolutionize the world. After
Baillie Gifford’s returns to investors in 2020 World War I, the firm decided America was a
have been nothing short of miraculous. Scottish compelling “emerging market,” and built positions
Mortgage Investment Trust, the $10 billion flag- in railroads including Union Pacific and Atchison,
ship Anderson co-manages, and a newer Long- Topeka and Santa Fe, eventually investing 20% of
Term Global Growth Fund with $40 billion in as- its assets in the United States. In the 1960s, it was
sets, are up more than 50% year to date, beating an early investor in emerging Japan.
the S&P 500 index by 47 percentage points. Both When the internet stock bubble popped in
have posted roughly 20% average annual returns 2000, Baillie Gifford suffered a setback, but as
over the past five years, more than doubling the investors fled companies like Amazon, the firm
index. The firm’s newer funds centered on U.S. backed Jeff Bezos’ vision. It was Amazon’s re-
companies driving “Positive Change” have also markable resilience and success that birthed the
GUTTER
done well, climbing as much as 25%. Even funds firm’s think-happy-thoughts-first, be-critical-lat-
that are down have trounced their benchmarks. er approach. Its timing was perfect. Technology

giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are
now carrying the S&P 500. “We started noticing
that big companies got better and got stronger,
AULD RELIABLE Baillie Gifford’s home base—Edinburgh, Scotland—can
rightly be called the wellspring of modern economic theory.
In 1776, Edinburgher Adam Smith published his timeless
and their returns got greater as they grew, rather classic The Wealth of Nations. Even over the past 15 years,
2.7 million Smith’s work has been outsold by few other business
than the reverse,” Anderson says. 3M
copies
books—save for that modern retelling of acquiring and
“If you can just hit one or two of those excep- dispensing wealth: Freakonomics.
28 tional companies that really drive markets over 2M
the long run, then they’ll pay for the inevitable
mistakes,” says Tom Slater, 42, who co-manages 1M
INVESTING
some flagship funds alongside Anderson. By 287,000 274,000 106,000 17,000

2012, the firm latched onto emerging trends like Freakonomics The Wealth Capital in the Free to Choose Das Kapital
cloud computing and Asian tech leaders like Ali- by Steven Levitt of Nations Twenty-First by Milton and by Karl Marx
and Stephen by Adam Smith Century Rose Friedman (1867)
baba and Tencent. J. Dubner (1776) by Thomas (1980)
Following the crowd for Baillie Gifford has led (2005) Piketty (2013)
SOURCE: NPD BOOKSCAN
to some big misses, including Eike Batista’s ill-
fated Brazilian oil company OGX, Vestas Wind
Systems, LendingClub and Nio. It also holds
stakes in troubled Airbnb and luggage maker Some $35 billion of Ballie Gifford’s capital is
Although Tom Slater,
Away. But wins like its 100-fold return on Ama- partner in charge of invested in China. Big holdings include surging
zon, 16-fold return on Tesla and a 17-fold gain Baillie Gifford’s U.S. delivery companies like Meituan Dianping and
Equity Team, studied
on Naspers, the South African conglomerate computer science budding e-commerce platform Pinduoduo. In
that owns 31% of Tencent stock, have more than and math, he’s no Europe it owns HelloFresh, a meal-kit delivery
quant when it comes
made up for its dogs. to investing. company, and the Amazon of Latin America,
MercadoLibre.
London-listed Scottish Mortgage Investment
Trust holds most of Baillie Gifford’s private in-
vestments, including stakes in Stripe, Ginkgo
Bioworks, the biological engineering pioneer,
and CureVac, the Bill Gates–backed coronavirus
vaccine firm President Trump reportedly wanted
to buy. The Scottish trust has risen fivefold over
the past decade. Among its mutual funds avail-
able to U.S. investors, Long Term Global Growth
and U.S. Equity Growth have performed best.
Baillie Gifford proudly embraces environmen-
tal, social and governance (ESG) investing. The
firm says it works with Amazon on sustainability
and worker conditions, encourages Google to pay
more in taxes and voted against what it viewed as
rich executive-pay packages at Apple.
What about the billions Baillie Gifford has
reaped from its investment in Tesla, whose owner,
Elon Musk, might be the poster boy for bad cor-
porate governance? According to Anderson, Bail-
lie Gifford grew concerned about Musk’s “pedo-
gate” Twitter battle during the 2018 rescue of
children from a cave in Thailand, as well as his in-
famous “$420” tweet about taking Tesla private,
which led to SEC sanctions. But it still voted in
favor of Musk’s recent $50 billion–plus incentive
package, the largest potential payout in corporate
history. Says Anderson, “I think it’s incumbent
on us to back the extraordinary appetite for ben-
eficial change and to look past any bumps in the
road.” Proving that optimism can pay, so long as
you don’t sweat too many details.

TECHNOLOGY
By Alan Ohnsman and Kenrick Cai Photograph by Janie Osborne for Forbes
Intelligence Agents 29
Normally, humans train AI systems to replace them. ASAP P ’s software

trains customer-service reps to be better humans.
I If you’ve ever felt your

blood boil after sitting on hold for 40 minutes
before reaching an agent . . . who then puts you
have to flip rapidly among a dozen or more com-
puter programs just to link your frequent-flier
number to a specific itinerary.
“Imagine that cognitive load, while you have
someone screaming at you or complaining about
some serious problem, and you’re swiveling be-
tween 20 screens to see which one you need to be
able to help this person,” says Gustavo Sapoznik,
Asapp CEO Gustavo
Sapoznik near
Bozeman, Montana.
The New Yorker and
passionate pilot
flew west during the
Covid-19 pandemic.
back on hold, consider that it’s often even worse 34, the founder and CEO of Asapp, a New York
on the other end of the line. A customer-service City–based developer of AI-powered customer-
representative for JetBlue, for instance, might service software.

Sapoznik remembers just such a scene while
shadowing a call-center agent at a “very large” AI 50: America’s CRESTA
company (he won’t name names), watching the
worker navigate a “Frankenstack” patchwork of
Most Promising CUSTOMER SERVICE
Assists customer-service
software, entering a caller’s information into six Artificial-Intelligence agents in real time.
30 different billing systems before locating it. “That DATAIKU

was an eye-opening moment.”
The problem has only gotten worse during the
Companies SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Develops tools for enterprises
TECHNOLOGY
pandemic. Call centers for banks, finance com- to build AI apps.

panies, airlines and service companies are being
ABNORMAL SECURITY DATAROBOT
overrun. Call volumes for Asapp’s customers CYBERSECURITY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
have spiked between 200% and 900% since the Scans inboxes for Makes software for companies
crisis began, according to Sapoznik. Making call malicious emails. to develop AI models.
centers work isn’t the sexiest use of cutting-edge
AI, but it’s a lucrative one. AISERA DEEPMAP
WORKFLOW SOFTWARE AUTOMOTIVE
According to estimates from Forrester Re- Automates IT, sales and Produces 3D maps for
search, global revenues for call centers are around customer-service tasks. self-driving vehicles.
$15 billion a year. In all, Asapp has raised $260
million at a recent valuation of $800 million, per AMP ROBOTICS DOMINO DATA LAB
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
data from Pitchbook. Silicon Valley heavy hitters
Makes robots that identify Provides tools for data
including Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr and sort recyclables. scientists.
and former Cisco CEO John Chambers are on
Asapp’s board, along with Dave Strohm of Grey- ANDURIL INDUSTRIES DOXEL
lock and March Capital’s Jamie Montgomery. DEFENSE PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
Clients include JetBlue, Sprint and satellite TV Builds surveillance systems Detects and tracks
for national-security purposes. construction-project problems.
provider Dish, all of whom who sign up for mul-
tiyear contracts contributing to Asapp’s estimat- ANYSCALE DRIFT
ed $40 million in revenue, according to startup SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
tracker Growjo. Helps software developers Builds chatbots to automate
Asapp has drawn this investor interest by flip- make machine-learning apps. customer interactions.
ping AI on its head. For years engineers have per-
ASAPP DRISHTI
fected artificial intelligence to perform repetitive CUSTOMER SERVICE PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
tasks better than humans. Rather than having Assists customer-service Creates data sets by digitizing
people train AI systems to replace them, Asapp agents in real time. human actions in factories.
makes AI that trains people to be “radically”
more productive. ATOMWISE EMBARK TRUCKS
HEALTH CARE AUTOMOTIVE
“Pure automation capabilities are [used] out of Discovers drugs with medical Creates software for
an imperative to reflect costs, but at the expense potential. self-driving trucks.
of customer experience. They’ve been around for
20 or 30 years but they haven’t really solved much AURORA EXTRAHOP
AUTOMOTIVE CYBERSECURITY
of the problem,” Sapoznik says. Asapp’s thinking:
Makes software for Detects cloud cybersecurity
“If we can automate half of this thing away, we self-driving cars. threats.
can get to the same place by making people twice
as productive.” BIOFOURMIS FIDDLER LABS
The company is a standout on Forbes’ second HEALTH CARE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
annual AI 50 list of up-and-coming companies Monitors patients’ health Helps companies build and
using wearables. monitor AI apps.
to watch, rated highly for its use of artificial intel-
ligence as a core attribute by an expert panel of BLUE HEXAGON GENESIS THERAPEUTICS
judges. Its focus on using AI to keep humans in CYBERSECURITY HEALTH CARE
the loop is also what sets Asapp apart, although Detects network or cloud Discovers drugs with
it’s competing in the same call-center sandbox as cyberattacks. medical potential.
fellow AI 50 listees Observe.ai of San Francisco
and Cresta, which is chaired by AI legend Sebas-
CEREBRAS SYSTEMS GHOST
HARDWARE AUTOMOTIVE
tian Thrun, the Stanford professor who greenlit Builds computing chips Puts self-driving tech into
Google’s self-driving car program. for AI use. conventional cars.

Asapp’s focus is natural language processing
GONG SCALE AI and converting speech to text using proprietary
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT technology developed by a group led by a found-
Analyzes sales conversations. Helps engineers speed up ing member of the speech team for Apple’s Siri.
AI development.
HIVEMAPPER Its software then displays suggested responses or
DATABASE SOFTWARE SHIELD AI relevant resources on a call-center agent’s screen, 31
Turns video footage into DEFENSE minimizing the need to toggle between applica-
3D maps. Makes mapping drones for tions. Sapoznik and his engineers also studied
TECHNOLOGY
national security. the most effective human representatives, trying
ICERTIS to replicate their expertise into Asapp software
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE SIGOPT
Analyzes businesses’ SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
via machine learning. That software then coach-
contract risks. Develops software for es call-center staff on effective ways to respond
enterprises to build AI models. to customer queries and tracks down critical in-
KARIUS formation. If a caller asks how to cancel a flight,
HEALTH CARE SYNACK for example, Asapp software automatically pulls
Looks for pathogens in CYBERSECURITY
blood tests. Spots cybersecurity up helpful documents for the agent to browse.
vulnerabilities. If a customer reads a 16-digit account number,
KRISP TECHNOLOGIES it’s instantly transcribed and displayed on the
COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE TEXTIO agent’s screen for easy reference.
Removes background noise PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
When things go right, companies using Asapp
from calls. Gives suggestions on how to
improve writing.
technology see the number of calls successfully
LEMONADE handled per hour increase from 40% to more
FINANCIAL SERVICES TUSIMPLE than 150%. That can mean lower stress for call-
Sells insurance using bots. AUTOMOTIVE center workers, which in turn reduces the high
Builds self-driving trucks. turnover associated with that line of work.
L I LT
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE TWOXAR A licensed pilot with a fondness for classical
Assists human language HEALTH CARE music who studied math at the University of Chi-
translators. Discovers drugs with cago, Sapoznik first applied his coding skills to
medical potential. his family’s real estate and financial business in
MOVEWORKS Miami. “I’d been doing some work in investments
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE UIPATH where you build machine-learning product capa-
Resolves IT tickets WORKFLOW SOFTWARE
autonomously. Creates bots that carry out bilities to trade the markets. The impact there is
repetitive processes. that there’s a number that goes up or goes down,”
NURO he says. Merely making money didn’t excite him.
AUTOMOTIVE UNITY TECHNOLOGIES Sapoznik hopes that optimizing call centers is
Produces self-driving SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
just a start for Asapp, which he founded in 2014.
delivery robots. Provides software for app or
game development. He’s actively searching for similar “gigantic-size”
OBSERVE.AI business opportunities with “brokenness and
CUSTOMER SERVICE UPSTART tons of interesting data.” He thinks Asapp can
Analyzes customer-service FINANCIAL SERVICES do that because it’s built like a research organiza-
calls. Partners with banks to tion—80% of its 300 employees are researchers
price loans.
P O N Y. A I or engineers.
AUTOMOTIVE VISE “The exciting thing about Asapp is not so much
Makes software for FINANCIAL SERVICES what they’re going after now, but whether or not
self-driving cars. Offers financial planning and they can go beyond that,” says Forrester analyst
management. Kjell Carlsson. “They, like so many of us, see the
RECURSION incredible potential of [using] natural language
HEALTH CARE VIZ.AI
Discovers potential drugs for HEALTH CARE
processing for augmented intelligence.”
rare diseases. Analyzes stroke risk from Summarizing Asapp’s potential, Sapoznik
brain images. draws on his experience as a pilot—in aviation,
SAFEGRAPH automation has steadily transformed the cock-
DATABASE SOFTWARE ZEBRIUM pit. “It’s increased safety from a pretty dramatic
Creates data sets by tracking PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE
commercial spaces. Detects and resolves perspective, and it hasn’t gotten rid of pilots
software problems. yet,” he says. “It’s just taken away chunks of their
workloads.”

32
STRATEGIES
By Alan Ohnsman and Antoine Gara Photograph by Pete Barrett for Forbes
Getting America 33
Back On Track
W ES E D E NS is betting $9 billion that America’s transportation future is passenger rail.
S
table. “Drive from Miami to Orlando with your family;
drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It’s a bad experience.”
So is the money pit known as U.S. passenger rail. Amtrak,
since its creation in 1971, has consumed $52 billion of pub-
lic funds and never made money. Its best year was the $30
million operating loss it reported in 2019. But inside those
numbers, bloated by mandates from various members of
Congress to run coast-to-coast operations in a country with
little appetite for it, there’s a bright silver lining: Amtrak’s
high-speed Acela service along the congested Interstate-95
corridor between Washington, New York City and Boston
earned $334 million in operating profit last year. In other
words, find the right regions and passenger rail can work
Shouting over the noise of wonderfully.
diners at a Mexican restaurant on the floor of a casino, buy- “The lack of passenger travel by train in this country is a
out billionaire Wes Edens has come to Las Vegas, one of the travesty,” Edens says. “It’s a gigantic opportunity.” His role
cities least friendly to mass transit, to talk about passenger model: the 19th-century industrialist Henry Flagler—co-
rail. “It’s not like I had Lionel train sets in my basement,” he founder of Standard Oil with John D. Rockefeller—whose
says. “I wasn’t a train nut, but I love riding on trains. It’s my rail projects essentially made the state of Florida economi-
favorite form of travel.” cally viable.
Even a couple months ago, that was audacious talk from Edens and Fortress took over Flagler’s South Florida
the casual, sandy-haired 58-year-old who made his for- rail line for $3.5 billion in 2007, and as his ambition blos-
tune with Fortress Investment Group and who co-owns somed, he pitched its potential to governors on both coasts.
the NBA’s top team, the Milwaukee Bucks. In a post-Covid The effort paid off. He secured tax-exempt bonds over the
world, as people settle in for a period of minimal travel, es- last two years to expand his Brightline rail service from
pecially if it involves being squeezed among others, a bet Miami north to Orlando, a project with total construction
on train service sounds downright crazy, especially since it costs of $4.2 billion. In April, he won a $600 million pri-
comes with a $9 billion price tag. vate-activity allocation from California. Up to $2.4 billion
Edens’ vision: tax-exempt bonds to create high-speed worth of bonds from that award, provided to California by
train lines linking Orlando to Miami and Las Vegas to the federal government, can in turn be sold to private inves-
Southern California. He sees a service modeled on the Paris- tors. If all goes as planned, by 2023 the train will be whisk-
to-London Eurostar and is so confident the plan will work ing passengers from Las Vegas to a far-flung Los Angeles
that he’s put more than $100 million of his own money into suburb in 85 minutes at speeds of up to 320km/h. The $5
it. If things go right, his trains could haul nearly 20 million billion desert train also snagged private-activity financing
passengers in 2026, generate annual revenue of $1.6 billion from the federal government worth $1 billion and is await-
and operating profit of almost $1 billion a year. ing a bond allocation from Nevada.
“Great fortunes are generally made by solving the most “His ideas are so big,” says friend and Los Angeles Lakers
obvious problems,” Edens says, woven leather bracelets owner Jeanie Buss, a co-owner of Edens’ Cincoro tequila
on his right wrist jiggling each time he lightly thumps the brand alongside Michael Jordan and the owner of the Bos-

ton Celtics. “We need thinkers like that in this
country, people who see possibility and opportu-
nity, because we’ve kind of lost that as a country.”
His public-private financing model is also ex-
actly how big-ticket infrastructure will get built,
34 says former HUD secretary and San Antonio
mayor Henry Cisneros, who chairs a firm that
specializes in securing funds for such projects.
S T R AT EG I E S
“There’s pioneering work being done of a financial

nature to unleash private capital,” he tells Forbes.
“If there’s sufficient incentive to ensure that the
[projects] will get built and can be moneymakers,
there are investors and entities in our system of
capital that want longer-term investments.”
Edens’ grand plans are compelling; his modern
Florida and West Coast trains mean thousands of
construction jobs when they’re most needed, con-
sidering the unemployment and economic car-
nage wrought by Covid-19. But his track record
suggests delivering them isn’t a certainty.
After owning Flagler’s railroad for a dozen
years, the return for Edens and Fortress investors
remains uncertain. According to Forbes’ analysis
of public pension and securities filings, Edens and
Fortress plowed about $2 billion of equity into
their rail bet, struck at the apex of the 2007 real
estate and buyout bubble, and they’ve yet to re-
coup all that cash. Staring down a near-total loss
on his career—and his rail wager—at the market
bottom, Edens has spent a decade-plus quietly
clawing investors back to even. Now, any mean- West Palm Beach is 200km/h will haul passengers between Orlan-
the current terminus
ingful next act hinges on his train bet paying off. for Wes Edens’ do’s airport and Miami in about three hours, an
Florida-based Brightline is the starting point. Brightline service to hour faster than by car. The ridership target is
Miami. “We’ll know
Funded in 2017 with $600 million in private how it does in 2023.” 6.6 million people in 2023, the first full year of
equity and tax-exempt bonds, the only private service. Brightline also has a branding deal with
U.S. passenger line began operating a 108km Richard Branson’s Virgin, renaming its Miami
service in the dense corridor between Miami station Virgin MiamiCentral in 2018, and is in
and West Palm Beach the next year. Its sleek yel- talks to add a second Orlando station at Disney
low-black-gray-and-white Siemens trains chug World and an extension to Tampa.
along at a top speed of just 127km/h. Brightline “Wes is a spirited investor and has a true pio-
coaches feature soft white-and-blue interiors, neering spirit with these major investments in
roomy seats and free Wi-Fi. Passengers book U.S. infrastructure and, in the case of Miami,
through its app or at digital kiosks, and compa- real urban regeneration,” Branson tells Forbes.
ny president Patrick Goddard, a Dublin native Virgin’s deal with Brightline hasn’t included any
with a luxury-hotel background, says premium investment.
customer service is a priority. Markets have been more skeptical. After rais-
But it’s far from a moneymaker. Last year it ing $1.75 billion in high-yield tax-exempt bonds
carried just over 1 million riders, with $22 mil- at a 6%-plus coupon in April 2019, Brightline’s
lion in revenue and a $66 million operating loss. debt trades below par. “Even though the early
That doesn’t concern Edens, who says the cur- results are somewhat delayed and some people
rent operation is just a taste of what’s coming. A have criticized them as a disappointment, it’s
big moment will arrive in 2022, when Brightline still in an early stage of the ramp-up,” says John
opens 274 kilometers of new track north to Or- V. Miller, head of municipal fixed income at
lando, funded with $2.7 billion of tax-exempt Nuveen, a holder of $1.4 billion, or 80%, of the
bonds and investor cash. Trains traveling up to project’s total debt.

Edens’ West Coast plan is 290 kilometers of and its stock plunged. Edens spent years salvag-
track connecting Las Vegas and Apple Valley, ing bad investments. “It’s hard to express how
California, a high-desert city 145 kilometers east difficult 2007, 2008 and 2009 really were in the
of Los Angeles whose claim to fame was being business,” he recalls.
home to silver-screen singing cowboy Roy Rog- With his back against the wall, he got cre-
ers, his wife, Dale Evans, and his trusty horse, ative, embarking on a 12-year odyssey to make 35
Trigger. Edens bought 121 hectares there for a his investors whole, leaning on his skill for mak-
train station and parking structure. Trains on ing money in lowbrow areas of finance such as
S T R AT EG I E S
the line will be fully electric—a move that pleases subprime lending. He repositioned failing bets
California officials because they’ll eliminate vast like Nationstar Mortgage, which became a ser-
amounts of exhaust and CO2—and run along- vicer of subprime mortgages as banks exited the
side Interstate 15. troubled business, eventually selling it for over
In contrast to California’s highly criticized $1 billion in 2018. Fortress pressed this idea, op-
publicly funded high-speed rail project, state portunistically buying large portfolios of ailing
treasurer Fiona Ma sees no local risk if it flops. subprime mortgages to service from AIG and
“There’s no hit to California taxpayers,” she says. Citigroup, which it also exited in 2018 at a $3
“It’s just the allocation of [federal] bonds.” The billion–plus profit.
trim, 185cm Edens, dressed in a low-key black “We went into the financial crisis high on he-
pullover, white T-shirt and chinos, navigated an lium,” says investor Michael Novogratz, Edens’
unlikely path to his new-age industrialist vision. former partner, who went on to make a fortune
The grandson of a homesteader raised near Hel- betting on cryptocurrencies. “Wes did a lot of re-
ena, Montana, he was educated at Oregon State ally crafty things” to claw his way back, he adds.
and cracked into Wall Street in 1987 at Lehman “He kind of salvaged what would have been a real
Brothers. After making partner, he left in 1993 disaster for investors and his reputation.”
for fledgling bond manager BlackRock before Unable to corral large amounts of money for
founding Fortress in 1998. buyouts from pensions, Edens found the cash by
Entering 2002, Fortress was mite-sized, with turning Fortress into a financial alchemist, shuf-
just $1.2 billion in assets, but it grew quickly. fling assets around and conjuring six public com-
Edens’ first two buyout funds, raised amid the panies in a six-year stretch. He spun out four new
dot-com bust, were among Wall Street’s best per- listed firms between 2013 and 2015 that manage
formers, and Fortress became a giant in hedge assets in media, mortgages, senior housing fa-
funds and managing complex pools of debt. As- cilities and golf courses—and which pay Fortress
sets soared 25-fold over a five-year stretch. Edens hefty fees. Edens also shifted a large infrastructure
outraced billionaires such as Blackstone’s Stephen fund into a vehicle called Fortress Transportation
Schwarzman and Henry Kravis of KKR by tak- and Infrastructure, which houses rail facilities and
ing Fortress public in February 2007. Its shares aircraft leasing operations and was listed in 2015.
soared 89% on their first trading day; Edens and In 2019, he created yet another public concern,
his partners became billionaires. New Fortress Energy, with a burgeoning liquefied
The coronation was premature. Fortress de- natural gas business and a goal to supply hydro-
scended into freefall as Edens, armed with $9.4 gen for electric-power generation.
billion of buyout funds raised in 2006 and 2007, The moves yielded Edens unheralded wind-
made mistake after mistake. He bet on a sub- falls and new fee streams. When Fortress sold
prime lender, Nationstar Mortgage, just before itself to SoftBank in 2017, earning Edens and his
defaults soared, and pressed an $8.9 billion partners a pretax $1.4 billion, 40% of the fees
buyout of casino operator Penn National Gam- it earned that year were paid to Fortress by the
ing, costing the firm a $1.5 billion termination companies Edens had devised. The pandemic hit
fee when Fortress pulled out. Even a wager on many of them hard because of their heavy expo-
skiing—Fortress’ 2006 takeover of Intrawest, sure to mortgages, real estate, newspapers and
the owner of Whistler, Steamboat and Squaw aircraft leases. But the newer ones, particularly
Valley—was a catastrophe. When the 2010 Van- the rail and energy business, are now his focus.
couver Olympics arrived, Edens was warding off “At this point in my life, I’m more of a builder,”
foreclosure threats and working to sell assets like Edens says, adding, “upgrading our nation’s in-
Whistler. From 2008 through 2010, investors frastructure and building high-speed trains can
pulled $12.8 billion from Fortress, which posted be this generation’s Hoover Dam and Tennessee
$3.2 billion in combined losses during the crisis, Valley Authority.”

THE PROFILE SINGAPORE’S 50 RICHEST
HIGH
36
FOR REST LI ’S S EA LT D I S B O OM ING

AS T HE PA NDE MI C DRI VE S US E R S
TO P LAY I TS ONLIN E GA M E S,
SHOP O N ITS E- COM ME RCE S I TE AN D
US E I TS D IGI TA L PAY M EN T S ERV ICE S.
SEA
BY J O H N K A N G P H OTO G R A P H BY S E A N L E E F O R F O R B E S A S I A

in the new normal: e-commerce, online gaming
and digital payments. And Li says the growth is
just starting: “You don’t see the ceiling on these
three businesses.” Investors agree, as Sea shares
Consider
have more than tripled this year to around $146
(and are up over 1,000% since early last year).
Sea’s second-quarter earnings, released on
Aug. 18, show how well it has been faring. Total
38 revenues nearly doubled to $1.3 billion—driven
these facts:
by big revenue gains at its two largest businesses,
online gaming and e-commerce, jumping 62% to
THE PROFILE
$716 million and almost tripling to $511 million,

respectively. The company, however, remains un-
profitable, with its second-quarter losses widen-
ing 59% to $373 million year-on-year.
Singapore-based Sea Ltd. is the most valuable Sea’s success is also a validation of Li’s be-
public company in the island nation, with a mar- lief in Southeast Asia’s digital future. Li says the
ket capitalization of around $69 billion as of pandemic only accelerated a disruption already
Aug. 19. At $7.1 billion, Forrest Li, Sea’s chair- in place. “Several years down the road, when we
man and cofounder, has a net worth that puts look back at this situation, I think we’ll see this
him at No. 7 on Singapore’s 50 Richest list, up digital transformation during this pandemic
from No. 21 last year. The company’s two other was very broad and very deep and, in our view,
cofounders, David Chen and Gang Ye, are also irreversible,” says Li in a video interview from
Garena’s Free Fire
billionaires. World Series 2019 Sea’s office in Galaxis, a high-tech business park
While the pandemic has decimated many drew more than 130 in Singapore.
million views online.
companies, it is a boon to others, and few bet- The battle royale- Li, who holds an engineering degree from
ter illustrate this than Sea. The company’s three style multiplayer Shanghai Jiaotong University and an M.B.A.
game has 100 million
main businesses have seen demand skyrocket daily users globally. from Stanford University, has come a long way
COURTESY OF SEA

SEA CHANGE 145.98
SEA’S STOCK PRICE OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS TO AUG. 18, 2020
140
120
100
39
Travel
80 restrictions
imposed
across ASEAN
60 43.17
Low
point
40 26.70
20
08/19 09/19 10/19 11/19 12/19 01/19 02/19 03/19 04/19 05/19 06/19 07/19 08/18
2019 2020
SOURCE: FT.COM
in his 42 years. He was born and raised in the Sea’s evolution came in 2014, when it launched
Chinese port city of Tianjin by parents who spent AirPay, which evolved into Sea’s digital finan-
their entire careers at state-owned companies. cial service SeaMoney. The next year, it ventured
After being a recruiter for Motorola and Corning into e-commerce with the launch of Shopee.
in Shanghai for four years, Li realized he wanted American Nick Nash, the former group pres-
to do something more with his life after studying ident of Sea from 2014 to 2018, says these steps
hundreds of résumés. “Every résumé is a personal were part of Li’s plan to create a company inspired
story, right? So by reading other people’s stories, by Alibaba and Tencent for the Southeast Asian
I started to think about how I wanted my résu- market. “Southeast Asia’s evolution is in many re-
mé to read like in the future,” he told Forbes Asia spects similar to China, but happening about 11
in 2015. “I kind of knew what my résumé would years later,” says Nash, now cofounder and man-
look like five years later. And somehow I didn’t aging partner of Asia Partners, a Singapore pri-
feel excited.” His first step to make a change was Sea’s headquarters
vate equity firm investing in Southeast Asian tech
getting accepted into Stanford, where he met his in Singapore. firms. “The brilliance of Forrest’s strategy was
future wife Ma Liqian.
In 2005, Li attended Ma’s graduation, where
Steve Jobs delivered his famous “you’ve got to
find what you love” commencement speech. Jobs
inspired Li to pursue his passion for online gam-
ing, so he launched a gaming company called GG
Game in Singapore, where he had moved with
Ma. The startup failed. Undeterred, he launched
Garena in 2009 with Chen and Ye—all three are
now naturalized Singaporeans originally from
mainland China.
But keeping this second company alive proved
SEAN LEE/FORBES ASIA
a struggle, as Asia was still reeling from the glob-

al financial crisis. The company turned a corner
in 2010 when it signed a deal to distribute games
from U.S.-based Riot Games and Tencent took a
40% stake in the company, giving Sea a big cash
infusion (now reduced to 20%). The next step in

40
THE PROFILE
(From left) Forrest Li, Gang Ye and David Chen.
T H R E E- CO M M A C LU B
very clear,” Nash says: “an opportunity to locally
David Chen is the third and last of Sea’s founders to join the
adapt and be inspired by the two most valuable
ranks of billionaires. Chen, 39, became a billionaire in mid-June
business models from China—online games from when the Singapore-based gaming and e-commerce firm’s
Tencent and e-commerce from Alibaba.” share price passed $97—up 547% from its IPO price. Chen’s
In 2017, Li rebranded the company as Sea stake in the company, plus options, puts his personal fortune
ahead of its IPO that year—the new name was a just north of $1 billion.
nod to Southeast Asia, the company’s main mar- Chen is the fourth-largest individual shareholder in Sea af-
ket. Sea raised $884 million in an offering that ter fellow cofounders Li and Ye, the first and second-largest.
Independent director and early investor Kuok Khoon Hua,
valued the company at more than $4 billion when the youngest son of Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok, is the
its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange. third-largest.
“Connecting the dots” became Sea’s tagline, a Chen holds a strategic position as the chief product officer of
phrase taken from Jobs’ 2005 speech. Shopee, a sign of the importance of e-commerce to the com-
pany. He is the only cofounder focused on a specific business
(Li is group CEO and Ye, 40, is group chief operating officer).
W
ith so many at home or keep-
ing social distance, going online is
now the main way to engage with
others, says Li. Sea’s online gam- shopping app in Southeast Asia and among the
ing business, which retains the top three worldwide in the same category in the
Garena name, had a strong start to the year, with first half of the year, according to App Annie.
half a billion active users in the second quar- To be sure, Shopee is still losing money, even
ter, up 61% from the previous year. That growth after five years of operation. Sea’s e-commerce
was fueled by the popularity of Free Fire, a battle division’s operating loss widened to $345 mil-
royale-style multiplayer game. According to re- lion in the second quarter from $270 million a
searcher App Annie, it was the third most-down- year earlier. Shopee’s costs arise from its expen-
loaded mobile game globally in the second quar- sive battle to gain and keep market share from
ter from the Google Play app store. multiple rivals, such as Alibaba’s Lazada and
Sea’s Shopee business saw similar pandemic- Indonesia’s Tokopedia (which is also backed by
fueled growth, as shoppers stocked up on sup- Alibaba). Shopee’s net loss is the main reason
plies. “The first thing for consumers is to buy the why Sea remains unprofitable (Garena, mean-
things they need,” says Li. In the second quarter, while, had operating income of $167 million on
COURTESY OF SEA
Shopee had gross merchandise value growth of $384 million in revenue in the latest quarter).
110% from the previous year to $8 billion, while But Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market is still
gross orders totaled 616 million, a 150% increase growing—less than half of the region’s 360 mil-
year-on-year. Shopee was the most downloaded lion internet users actively shop online, according

to a report last year jointly prepared by Google, some new things to grow. That is very, very dif-
Temasek and consultancy Bain. So for now, gain- ferent from six, seven years ago, when we did
ing market share trumps making money, says Sa- have that urgency,” says Li. “We’re going to re-
chin Mittal, head of telecommunication, media main very focused on the three lines.” Still, Li
and technology research at DBS in Singapore. says he is keeping an eye on any new opportu-
“Shopee’s losses are reasonable at this stage as nities, including online food delivery, e-learning
market share is the priority over profitability at and telemedicine.
such low e-commerce penetration levels,” he says. Over the long term, as Sea continues to grow,
Li says Shopee can break even any time. Yanjun it is starting to move outside Southeast Asia. Li 41
Wang, group chief corporate officer, told analysts points to Garena, where more than half of its on-
in a May conference call: “We are focused on line gaming users come from outside the region,
investing in growth, in extending our market including India, Latin America, the Middle East
leadership that will bring us much better return and Russia. “If we have the opportunity to serve
in longer run and profitability.” more users globally, we do have that aspiration,”
Sea’s third business is SeaMoney. The digi- Li says. But he insists that Southeast Asia will re-
tal financial services arm is the smallest of Sea’s main Sea’s priority. When asked if he will change
business units, with second-quarter revenue of Sea’s name to reflect the company’s global ambi-
$12 million—about 1% of the company’s total tions, Li says, with a laugh: “We don’t have that
revenue. Its value, for now, comes in helping fa- plan at the moment.”
cilitate other units’ operations, such as payments
for Shopee. “We believe that digital payment is
a very important infrastructure,” says Li. In July,
for example, 45% of Shopee’s gross orders in
Indonesia were paid using SeaMoney’s mobile
wallet service.
SeaMoney has the potential to be a significant
business by itself. Second-quarter revenue more
than quintupled from just over $2 million a year
ago. The Southeast Asian digital payments mar-
ket is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2025—ac-
counting for half of all payments in the region,
according to the Google, Temasek and Bain re-
port. Similar to online shopping, Li expects the
coronavirus will push more people toward digi- SA I LO R S AT S E A
tal payments. Beyond his digital aspirations, Li is an avid soccer fan and has plans
A possible addition to SeaMoney could be to elevate the city-state’s soccer scene. There’s lots of room for
a game-changer: digital banking. Earlier this improvement: the Lions, as the men’s national team is nicknamed, are
year, Sea applied for one of the two digital re- ranked No. 157 in the world by FIFA, below New Caledonia in the South
tail banking licenses in Singapore. Like a tradi- Pacific. Li, who sits on the Football Association of Singapore Council,
is focused on developing young players. “If kids are really passionate
tional bank, the license would allow Sea to make
about football and they are gifted, we want them to continue on that
loans and take deposits. “The best way to make path and show them that being a professional footballer could be a
money in the lending business is by having con- very valid career, which is the case in a lot of Europe, but less so in
sumer deposits, which lower your cost of capital,” Asia,” he says.
says Nash. “Having a bank license would give Li is doing that through Lion City Sailors, a local professional club
Sea access to a wonderful base of deposits here formerly named Home United that Sea acquired in February from the
in the most important financial center of South- Singapore government for an undisclosed sum. (It was the first privati-
zation of a Singapore Premier League club as part of a pilot project by
east Asia.” The Monetary Authority of Singapore
the Football Association of Singapore to revitalize the league.) He took
is assessing five applicants, including Sea, and is over as chairman and announced in June that the club would build a
expected to award the two licenses by year-end. world-class center to train talented youth.
Outside of digital banking, Li has no immedi- Li doesn’t rule out other soccer-related purchases down the line,
ate plans to branch out beyond Sea’s three main even a European soccer club. “We don’t have any plans at this
business lines. “We always believe that digital en- moment, but we will see,” he says with a laugh. If he did, he’d be joining
an elite club of Asian tycoon owners, including Singaporean Peter Lim
tertainment, specifically games, e-commerce and
(Valencia), Malaysian Vincent Tan (Cardiff City) and Thai Aiyawatt
digital financial services are the largest [inter-
COURTESY OF SEA
Srivaddhanaprabha (Leicester City).

net] categories,” says Li. Li, who says he is both a Barcelona and Arsenal fan, also admires
Li says Sea is entering a new phase in its evo- soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays for Italian champions
lution, having graduated from its frenetic ear- Juventus. Last year, Li hired Ronaldo to be Shopee’s brand ambassador.
ly startup days. “We’re not in a rush to look for

PROMOTION
FIT FOR THE FUTURE

HSBC Private Banking transforms itself to best help clients with sustainable investment and
legacy strategies in a rapidly changing world.
Philip Kunz, Head of Global Private Banking, Southeast Asia, HSBC Private Banking
The Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly changing This is part of a broader strategic transfor- Sustainable Solutions
the way we live and work, even as longer- mation programme announced by the HSBC HSBC Private Banking is focused on address-
term megatrends such as technological Group, which will involve reshaping and ing the growing demand amongst its clients
advancements and climate change con- reorganising the organisation to improve to integrate environmental, social and gov-
tinue to alter the global landscape. Amid this efficiency, investing in new skills and creat- ernance (ESG) factors into their investment
shifting environment, the needs of high net ing a simpler and better digital experience. decision-making processes. In particular, next
worth individuals and their families are evolv- Simply put, HSBC aims to be a “bank fit for generation private banking clients expect to
ing faster than ever. the future”. see more from their investments beyond just
Against this backdrop, HSBC Private Bank- Part of this strategic transformation pro- financial returns. These young investors want
ing is transforming itself to stay relevant to gramme involves a significant investment in to help better society and the environment
its clients by leveraging its strengths as an accelerating HSBC’s growth in Asia over the through their investments.
international financial institution; one that next few years. Singapore is a key market for The pandemic is likely to accelerate this
combines talent with technology. the HSBC Group, and the bank will continue movement towards investing in businesses
“Our ambition is to build a better and to invest to grow its presence and market that focus on impact and purpose, as the
different Private Bank. Harnessing our inter- share in the city-state. scale of the crisis prompts a rising wave of
national network, our role is to illuminate On its part, HSBC Private Banking will con- urgency when it comes to sustainability.
opportunities, ideas, places and people not tinue to steer towards growth by expanding “I think what has been happening in the
known yet,” says Philip Kunz, Head of Global in its areas of strength in the wealth manage- world has triggered a deep reflection about
Private Banking, Southeast Asia, at HSBC. ment space. how we can change the way we live for a
PROMOTION
In April this year, HSBC moved into its new head office at Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 2, where it is the anchor tenant.
The new office is part of an island-wide upgrade and investment of its branches across Singapore.
better world. This has resonated with clients to legacy, which should go beyond financial sations with our clients to address what is
in our conversations. We want to support wealth. More importantly, it should encom- close to their hearts. Good communication
our clients by inspiring and helping them to pass ensuring the happiness and prosperity is essential to successfully navigate the storm
make positive changes,” says Kunz. of future generations to come. and protect the wealth and sustainability of
Thus, HSBC is taking a hands-on approach Among other things, this will require the family businesses,” Kunz says.
to this ethos, providing sustainability-related senior generation of families to have open
thought leadership and innovations with and constructive conversations regard- Succession Planning
Closely related to family legacy is the topic
of succession planning. The massive disrup-
tion wrought by Covid-19 puts in sharp relief
"Our ambition is to build a better and different Private Bank.
the need for family businesses to invest in a
Harnessing our international network, our role is to proper succession plan. Indeed, the current
illuminate opportunities, ideas, places and people not uncertainties can be a catalyst for family
members to conduct discussions about their
known yet." future.
While every family business is unique in
– Philip Kunz, Head of Global Private Banking, Southeast Asia,
their makeup, what remains unchanged is
HSBC Private Banking their desire to avoid the curse of shirtsleeves
to shirtsleeves in three generations—the
very real risk of declining wealth.
capital financing. “Integrating ESG into ing the paths that their heirs can take. This “We have consistently seen that fam-
investing isn’t just about doing good, it also includes discussions around setting up a ily businesses are better prepared for the
makes good business sense. Companies that philanthropic trust or foundation in the fam- future when they have a well-thought-out
are synonymous with ESG have shown to be ily name that they can run in the future, and approach to communicating about succes-
agile enough to adapt, and therefore resilient practical advice on establishing and running sion,” Kunz says.
and sustainable,” he adds. businesses of their own. The world is changing rapidly, and per-
HSBC Private Banking is no stranger in this haps irrevocably, as a result of the pandemic.
Family Legacy area. It has been supporting some of the Amid this sea of uncertainty, HSBC Private
Legacy planning has always been a complex- world's most influential families with wealth Banking is transforming itself for the future
ity for wealthy families, and the ongoing pan- transition and legacy matters for generations, to ensure it remains capable of serving the
demic has led many to reflect on this impor- from trusts and estate planning to philan- group’s clients in supporting their sustain-
tant issue. HSBC Private Banking believes thropic and family office advisory. able ambitions for their family, business and
that one needs to take a holistic approach “We’ve had several meaningful conver- legacy.
This article is issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary, HSBC Trustee (Singapore) Limited.
THE LIST SINGAPORE’S 50 RICHEST
44
Bucking The Trend
Singapore’s 50 Richest added $37 billion despite a declining economy and stock market.
BY N A A Z N E E N K A R M A L I
andemic-induced economic pains have Sea’s shares (up 283% since fortunes were last measured),
P pushed Singapore into recession. For the

quarter ended in June, the trade-depen-
dent country reported a year-on-year 13.2%
the firm’s third cofounder David Chen became a billionaire
and debuted with a net worth of $1.37 billion.
Among the new faces this year is Binny Bansal, the co-
drop in GDP, despite $68 billion in stimu- founder of Indian shopping site Flipkart, who moved to
lus packages by the government to shore up the economy. Singapore last year after selling the firm to Walmart and is
The benchmark STI stock index has also fallen 21% from now a venture capitalist. While three of the four newcomers
when we measured fortunes in 2019. are billionaires, the fortune of Teo Swee Ann, cofounder
Bucking this downward trend, the nation’s 50 richest and CEO of fast-rising semiconductor firm Espressif Sys-
saw their collective net worth rise 28% to $167 billion. The tems, is just shy of the ten-digit mark.
city-state, which has become a magnet for tycoons from all The big gains enjoyed by some listees more than offset
corners of the world, has benefited by providing a home for the declines suffered by the majority—more than half saw
these wealthy expats, some taking citizenship. They occupy a drop in net worth. Shipping tycoon Chang Yun Chung,
three of the top five spots on the list. the 102-year-old founder of container ship operator, Pacific
China-born hotpot billionaire Zhang Yong, whose wife International Lines, is no longer a billionaire. A shipping
Shu Ping, a cofounder and director of Haidilao Interna- downturn forced the privately held firm to restructure its
tional Holding, is listed together with him this year, added debt and impacted his wealth.
$5.2 billion to retain the No. 1 spot. A new entrant, worth With tourism at a standstill, hoteliers such as Koh Wee
$17.8 billion, took the No. 2 spot: Li Xiting, cofounder and Meng of the Fragrance Group and Michael Kum of M&L
chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, Hospitality, saw their fortunes fall. Four dropped off, including
who’s now a naturalized Singapore citizen like Zhang. A Lim Oon Kuin, whose privately held Hin Leong Trading, one
surge in demand for Shenzhen Mindray’s ventilators and of Singapore’s largest oil traders, filed in April for bankruptcy.
other medical devices sent its Shenzhen-listed shares soar-
ing amid the pandemic. The rise of Facebook shares this Additional reporting by Pamela Ambler, Megha Bahree, Shu-
year also benefited No. 4 Eduardo Saverin, the social Ching Jean Chen, Russell Flannery, John Kang, Sean Kila-
media giant’s cofounder. chand, Anuradha Raghunathan, Jessica Tan and Yue Wang.
The cofounders of gaming and e-commerce firm Sea, a
homegrown success story best known for its super-hit Free METHODOLOGY
Fire online game, notched up record gains as more people The list was compiled using shareholding and financial information
turned to gaming and online shopping while under lock- obtained from the families and individuals, stock exchanges,
analysts and other sources. Unlike our billionaire rankings, this list
down. Chairman and CEO Forrest Li added $5.53 billion includes family fortunes, including those shared among extended
and entered the ranks of the top ten richest for the first families such as that of Kwek Leng Beng and his cousins. Net worths
time. Chief operating officer Gang Ye saw an impressive are based on stock prices and exchange rates as of the close of
markets on August 3, 2020. Private companies were valued based
356% jump in net worth, the largest percentage gain of on similar companies that are publicly traded.
any fortune on the list. Thanks to the stratospheric rise in
S IN GAP OR E ’S
50 RI CH E ST
1. ZHANG YONG & SHU PING

$19 BILLION
HAIDILAO INTERNATIONAL
HOLDING
AGE: 50, 50 45
2. LI XITING
$17.8 BILLION
SHENZHEN MINDRAY
BIO-MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
AGE: 69
3. GOH CHENG LIANG

$14.8 BILLION
NIPPON PAINT
Kishin RK AGE: 93
4. EDUARDO SAVERIN
Tasty Opportunity $14 BILLION
KISHIN RK, RAJ KUMAR FACEBOOK
AGE: 38
Talk about prescient: about a year be- pore. Kishin, 37, and Kumar, 66, saw their
fore the pandemic, billionaire property combined fortune remain little changed at
developer Kishin RK cofounded an online $2.6 billion. 5. ROBERT & PHILIP NG
meal delivery company, TiffinLabs. Now TiffinLabs’ outlook is bright. “We’re see- $13.2 BILLION
the company is busy catering to Singapor- ing a shift in terms of people behaving very FAR EAST ORGANIZATION
AGES: 68, 61
eans facing government-imposed limits on differently,” said Kishin, TiffinLabs’ chair-
in-restaurant dining. “We see an absolute man. “It’s going to stick for a long time.”
outburst and explosion of the food delivery
business globally,” Kishin told a Forbes Asia
The trend of takeouts from centralized
kitchens will help double global online de-
6. KWEK LENG BENG
Next Frontiers Webinar on June 23. livery sales to $200 billion by 2025 from its $8.8 BILLION
KUA CHEE SIONG/THE STRAITS TIMES/NEWSCOM
CITY DEVELOPMENTS
TiffinLabs differs from many online take- size in 2018, according to U.S. researcher AGE: 79
out companies. Rather than deliver food Frost & Sullivan.
from brick-and-mortar restaurants, cen- TiffinLabs is now going global. In June,
tralized kitchens prepare food that can be TiffinLabs leased more than 1,000 cloud 7. FORREST LI
ordered from virtual restaurants. Kishin’s kitchens in Asia, Europe and the U.S. Due to
$7.1 BILLION
food foray provides a welcome hedge fire up in the fourth quarter, these kitchens SEA
against the downturn in his real estate will allow the firm to reach over 10 markets AGE: 42
business, as Kishin’s RB Capital and dad worldwide. “We’re bringing our restaurant
Raj Kumar’s Royal Holdings own hotels brands here in Singapore global,” said Kishin.
and other property in Malaysia and Singa- —John Kang 8. KHOO FAMILY
$6.3 BILLION
CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP DOWN UNCHANGED NEW TO THE LIST RETURNEE GOODWOOD GROUP OF HOTELS
SI NGA POR E’ S
5 0 RICH EST
9. KWEE BROTHERS
$5.5 BILLION
46 PONTIAC LAND
10. WEE CHO YAW

THE LIST
$5.3 BILLION
UNITED OVERSEAS BANK
AGE: 91
11. GANG YE
$4.1 BILLION
SEA
AGE: 40
12. KUOK KHOON HONG

$3.6 BILLION
WILMAR INTERNATIONAL
AGE: 70
13. RAJ KUMAR & KISHIN RK

$2.6 BILLION Well Stocked
RB CAPITAL/ ROYAL HOLDINGS LIM HOCK CHEE
AGES: 66, 37
Lim Hock Chee and his brothers Hock Eng the gradual easing of restrictions on move-
and Hock Leng saw their combined net ments of people, elevated demand caused
14. CHOO CHONG NGEN worth rise 38% to $1.2 billion this year as by Covid-19 will ease,” the company said.
THONG KAH HOONG/SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS LTD

$2.5 BILLION shares of their budget supermarket chain Lim Hock Chee and Sheng Siong were un-
WORLDWIDE HOTELS available for comment.
soared. The stock price of their Singapore-
AGE: 67
listed Sheng Siong Group surged after Born to a hog farmer with nine children,
shoppers drove up sales by buying supplies the Lim brothers bought a struggling chain
15. RICHARD CHANDLER to stay home during the pandemic. of stores using S$30,000 borrowed from
The company saw a 151% increase in their father and renamed it Sheng Siong,
$2.4 BILLION second-quarter earnings, to S$46 million or “rising vegetable” in Hokkien. Today,
CLERMONT GROUP
AGE: 61 ($33 million), on a 76% rise to S$419 mil- Sheng Siong is Singapore’s third-largest su-
lion in revenues, it said in its second-quar- permarket chain by sales, with 61 outlets in
ter earnings report released in late July. Singapore and two in Kunming, and a mar-
16. ARVIND TIKU Sheng Siong cautioned revenues would ket cap of S$2.5 billion.
$2 BILLION shrink if the pandemic fades away. “With —John Kang
AT HOLDINGS
AGE: 50 CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP DOWN UNCHANGED NEW TO THE LIST RETURNEE
17. PETER LIM
Second Act $1.95 BILLION
BINNY BANSAL THOMSON MEDICAL GROUP
AGE: 67
Binny Bansal, 37, the youngest newcomer to Indian fintech Acko, U.S.-headquartered
Singapore’s 50 Richest this year (net worth: AI firm GreyOrange and Singapore-based 18. SAM GOI
$1.1 billion), has a tough act to follow—his software outfit Mobikon. Bansal says he is
own. In 2018, Walmart acquired a 77% industry-agnostic, but looks for technolo- $1.9 BILLION
TEE YIH JIA FOOD
stake for $16 billion in Flipkart, the Indian gies that could disrupt large markets, “just AGE: 73 47
company he cofounded, in what was report- like we did at Flipkart.” Bansal says most
edly the largest amount ever paid worldwide of his portfolio companies have survived—
19. OEI HONG LEONG
to acquire an e-commerce company. and even thrived—in the pandemic. “The
“With Amazon’s aggressive entry into digital world has been accelerated thanks to $1.8 BILLION
India, we needed a strategic partner,” says the pandemic, giving a boost to ventures in AGE: 72
Bansal of the deal. Though holding a 3% edtech, digital finance and healthcare tech-
stake and a board seat, he’s no longer in- nology,” he says.
volved in running Flipkart, which he start- Mentoring entrepreneurs is another pas- 20. ASOK KUMAR HIRANANDANI
ed in Bangalore as an online bookseller in sion. With two former Flipkart colleagues, $1.6 BILLION
2007 with Sachin Bansal (no relation). Bansal founded Bangalore-based xto10x ROYAL GROUP HOLDINGS
Last year, Binny Bansal relocated to Sin- Technologies, which provides advisory and AGE: 65
gapore. In addition to offering a good qual- consulting services to help startups scale.
ity of life for his 4-year-old twin sons, he “There’s not a lot of help available to new
says it is an ideal location for his second act entrepreneurs because there aren’t too many 21. ZHONG SHENG JIAN
as a venture capitalist. So far, Bansal has people who’ve been there, done that,” he says. $1.55 BILLION
invested in more than 40 ventures, such as —Naazneen Karmali YANLORD LAND
AGE: 62
22. ONG BENG SENG &

CHRISTINA ONG
$1.45 BILLION
HOTEL PROPERTIES
AGES: 75, 72
23. LEE FAMILY

ARINDOM CHOWDHURY FOR XTO10X TECHNOLOGIES
$1.41 BILLION
OCBC BANK
24. TANG WEE KIT

$1.4 BILLION
TANG HOLDINGS
AGE: 65
25. DAVID CHEN

$1.37 BILLION
SEA
AGE: 39
Downward Unity to Fortitude
Singapore’s GDP in the second quarter suffered The Singapore government has spent close to
a major decline. S$100 billion to support the economy so far this year.
(YEAR ON YEAR CHANGE)
(IN S$ BILLION)
February 6.4
% change 0 Unity
Budget
2019
48
1st quarter 1.0
THE LIST
March 48.4
2nd quarter 0.2 Resilience
Budget
3rd quarter 0.7
4th quarter 1.0

2020
April
1st quarter -0.3 Solidarity 5.1
Budget
2nd quarter -13.2

May
Fortitude 33
Budget
SOURCE: SINGAPORE MINISTRY OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY
SOURCE: SINGAPORE
Drifting Higher MINISTRY OF FINANCE Total 92.9
Singapore’s first-half unemployment rate was higher
than any annual rate in the past 10 years.
*Half-year figure, rest annual
Wealth Creation
*2.9%
Crunch Time
2.3% Singapore has long been a regional and global hub for in-
2.2% 2.1%
2.1% ternational trade, services and tourism. But being a coun-
2.0% 2.0% 1.9% 2.0% 1.9%
try highly reliant on global connectivity can be a two-edged
sword when the world economy goes into a tailspin, as it
has with the pandemic. Now Singapore is suffering one of
the worst downturns in its 55-year history.
Singapore’s GDP saw a major contraction in the second
quarter. Tourists arrivals have fallen to a couple thousand
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 a month, unemployment is at a 10-year high and the stock
market’s benchmark index is at a five-year low. The gov-
SOURCE: SINGAPORE MINISTRY OF MANPOWER ernment has done what it can, announcing four stimulus
packages. The S$93 billion ($68 billion) the government
S IN GAP O RE ’S
Big Drop 50 R IC HE ST
Tourist arrivals now measure a couple thousand.
(MONTHLY TOURIST ARRIVALS, IN ‘000)
1,800
1,400
1,000
26. LIEN FAMILY
49
$1.35 BILLION
UNITED OVERSEAS BANK
600
200
27. WONG BROTHERS
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun $1.33 BILLION
2019 2020 CHARLES & KEITH
SOURCE: SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD
28. RON SIM

$1.3 BILLION
V3 GROUP
Up and Down AGE: 61
Singapore’s benchmark stock index is at a five-year low.
(MONTHLY CLOSE OF THE STI INDEX TO AUG. 1, 2020)
29. CHEW GEK KHIM
$1.26 BILLION
3,500 STRAITS TRADING
AGE: 58
30. HO FAMILY
3,000
$1.25 BILLION
TAI TAK ESTATES
2,500 31. LIM HOCK CHEE

$1.2 BILLION
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 SHENG SIONG GROUP
AGE: 58
SOURCE: YAHOO FINANCE
32. ROBERT FRIEDLAND

has committed to spending in these pack- overall global economy and the battle to
$1.15 BILLION
IVANHOE MINES
ages is equivalent to almost 20% of Singa- stop the virus. The ability of Singapore’s AGE: 70
pore’s GDP. economy to create wealth for its richest
The outlook remains unclear as Singa- inhabitants and the general population is
pore’s economic future will remain hugely largely tied to these factors. 33. BINNY BANSAL
influenced by what is happening in the —Justin Doebele $1.1 BILLION
FLIPKART
CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP DOWN UNCHANGED NEW TO THE LIST RETURNEE AGE: 37
SI N GA POR E’S
5 0 R IC HEST
Shanghai Express
TEO SWEE ANN
As the pandemic battered China’s econo- nology Group, and then China’s Montage
my early this year, Teo Swee Ann was grap- Technology, Teo founded Espressif in 2008,
34. CHUA THIAN POH pling with a sharp decline in his company’s and the company’s flagship ESP32 chips
50 $1.05 BILLION sales. Teo’s Shanghai-based Espressif Sys- now power goods such as speakers, wear-
HO BEE LAND
tems, which designs chipsets and software, able devices and home appliances. In July
AGE: 72
had to slash prices. In the first half, net last year, Espressif sold 25% of its shares
THE LIST
profits dropped 45% to 35 million yuan in an IPO that valued the company at $716
35. TAY FAMILY ($5 million), as revenues slipped 9% to 293 million. The stock’s more than threefold
million yuan. rise since the IPO has pushed its market
$1 BILLION That decline wasn’t enough to keep Teo cap to $2.2 billion.
MEMOCORP
from vaulting onto the list after Espressif ’s Teo is not slowing down despite the pan-
IPO last year. A Singaporean with a mas- demic. “We have built the most comprehen-
36. TEO SWEE ANN ter’s in electrical engineering from the Na- sive ecosystem for IoT developers,” he wrote
tional University of Singapore, Teo made shareholders in February, and the company
$990 MILLION
ESPRESSIF SYSTEMS
his fortune in China, and joins the list with plans this year to launch four chips with
AGE: 44 a $990 million net worth. After jobs at U.S. improved performance and lower power
chipmakers Transilica and Marvell Tech- consumption. —Yue Wang
37. MUHAMMED AZIZ KHAN

$955 MILLION
SUMMIT GROUP
AGE: 65
38. GORDON & CELINE TANG

$940 MILLION
SINGHAIYI GROUP
39. LIM CHAP HUAT

$890 MILLION
SOILBUILD GROUP
AGE: 66
40. CHANG YUN CHUNG
COURTESY OF ESPRESSIF SYSTEMS

$875 MILLION
PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL LINES
AGE: 102
41. KOH WEE MENG

$870 MILLION
FRAGRANCE GROUP
AGE: 57 CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: UP DOWN UNCHANGED NEW TO THE LIST RETURNEE
42. PETER FU CHONG CHENG
$840 MILLION
KUO INTERNATIONAL
AGE: 67
43. MICHAEL KUM

$730 MILLION
M&L HOSPITALITY
AGE: 75 51
44. SAURABH MITTAL
$725 MILLION
MISSION HOLDINGS
AGE: 46
45. CHENG WAI KEUNG

$705 MILLION
Celine Tang
WING TAI HOLDINGS
AGE: 69
Prime Vacancies 46. TAN BOY TEE

GORDON & CELINE TANG
$675 MILLION
BESTFORD GROUP
The pandemic has pounded the region’s and manages hotels, residential proper- AGE: 71
perennially hot real estate markets, buffet- ties and malls in China and the U.S. The
ing the property empire Gordon Tang and couple and SingHaiyi didn’t respond to re-
his wife Celine have amassed across Asia, quests for comment. 47. YAO HSIAO TUNG
Australia, Europe and the U.S., and drag- The Tangs in recent years also acquired $665 MILLION
ging the couple’s net worth down 28% to sizable stakes in several REITs, now hit by HI-P INTERNATIONAL
$940 million. Strict quarantine measures the pandemic. The couple and their family AGE: 80
forced the temporary closure of their Sin- hold a 14% stake in Suntec REIT, which
gapore-listed developer SingHaiyi’s prop- owns properties in Australia and Singa-
erty showrooms and hurt rental income at pore, and whose shares have fallen 31% 48. MIN-LIANG TAN
the real estate investment trusts they hold. in the past 12 months. And OUE Com- $650 MILLION
Tang and his wife built most of their mercial REIT, which holds properties in RAZER
AGE: 42
fortune after moving to Singapore in Singapore and Shanghai and in which the
the 1990s from their native China. They Tangs have a minority stake with family,
founded trading firm Tang Dynasty in has lost 30% of its value over the same pe- 49. JOHN LIM
1995 and bought control of SingHaiyi in riod. SingHaiyi, meanwhile, is still moving
2012. They’ve made influential friends forward with its own projects, including $645 MILLION
ARA
along the way, notably Neil Bush, brother three residential projects in Singapore,
LIM ZERUI/SPH/NEWSCOM
AGE: 64
of former U.S. president George W. Bush. among them a $1.6 billion condo set to
Bush chairs SingHaiyi, and is a director open in 2023, and a residential property
of the Tangs’ investment firm American in San Francisco scheduled for completion 50. LOO CHOON YONG
Pacific International Capital, which owns in 2024. —Yue Wang $610 MILLION
RAFFLES MEDICAL GROUP
FOR MORE INFO, GO TO FORBES.COM/SINGAPORE AGE: 71
For a decade, chief
executives of the world’s
largest companies welcomed
Fed-sanctioned debt on
their balance sheets and
made themselves and their
shareholders rich. Covid-19
has turned the strategy into
an addiction.
T H E I N V E S T I G AT I O N
MORAL HAZARD
53
THANKS TO LOW RATES,

BIG CO MPANI ES
H AVE S PEN T YEARS
GORGING O N DEBT,
SOME R ECKL E SSLY.
B UT R AT HE R THA N
HEADI NG I NTO
BANK RUP TCY,
THEY ’ RE NOW G ETTING

GOVE RN ME NT S UPPORT.
DUKES
BY A N T O I N E G A R A A N D N AT H A N VA R D I
of
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY I S R A E L G . VA R G A S
→ When chief executive
54 Doug Parker took the pilot’s
seat at American Airlines in
T H E I N V E S T I GAT I O N
December 2013, it seemed as

though clear skies were ahead.
His U.S. Airways had finally bagged a major American had mastered the science of dynam-
partner by agreeing to combine with bankrupt ic fare pricing, and now nearly every seat on ev-
American. The new company would emerge with ery flight was full, maximizing revenue and effi-
modest debt as the nation’s largest airline, with ciency. Hailing the arrival of a “new American”
only three domestic carriers left among its glob- by early 2014, Parker was eager to please Wall
al competitors. Street. “I assure you that everything we’re doing
The financial crisis was well in the past, the is focused on maximizing value for our share-
economy was humming and travel seemed to holders,” he said on a call with investors.
be entering a new golden age. Carriers like Over the next six years, Parker borrowed heav-
ily, tapping capital markets no fewer than 18
times to raise $25 billion in debt. He used the
money to buy new planes and shore up Ameri-
can’s pension obligations, among other things.
B LU E- C H I P A host of passenger fees for additional baggage,
more legroom, in-flight snacks, drinks and more
D E BT J U N K I E S helped swell the bottom line to $17.5 billion in
FEW COMPANIES HAVE BEEN ABLE TO RESIST combined profits from 2014 to 2019. Keeping
THE LURE OF LEVERAGE. BELOW ARE ARE SOME OF his pledge, Parker declared a regular dividend in
THE BIGGEST BORROWERS.
2014—American’s first in 34 years—and began
NET DEBT- buying back billions of the airline’s stock.
2010 2019 TO-REVENUE “Holding more cash than the company needs
COMPANY NET DEBT (BIL) NET DEBT (BIL) INCREASE
to hold is not a good use of our shareholders’
Eli Lilly $0.2 $13.5 70.1x
capital,” he reasoned. That was music to hedge
FedEx 0.1 16.8 67.0 funders’ ears as they piled into American stock.
Becton, Dickinson 0.5 19.2 17.1 Even Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett
Exxon Mobil 6.6 49.7 10.1 bought a chunk of the company. Out of bankrupt-
Freeport-McMoRan 1.0 8.0 10.0 cy, its stock took off almost immediately, doubling
Church & Dwight 0.2 2.1 8.2 during Parker’s first year on the job. For his man-
LyondellBasell Industries 1.9 12.4 7.9 agerial brilliance, Parker was rewarded with an-
Parker-Hannifin 1.0 8.8 6.6 nual compensation surpassing $10 million.
McKesson 0.8 9.9 5.7 Fast-forward to 2020, and Covid-19 has lev-
eled the travel industry. American Airlines is
Conagra Brands 2.6 10.4 4.6
flat broke, in part because of Parker’s profligate
Halliburton 1.8 8.2 3.7
spending. Now the U.S. government has agreed
DISH Network 3.6 11.4 3.2
to advance it $5.8 billion in the form of grants
Wynn Resorts 2.0 8.2 2.6 and low-interest loans—the largest payment to
Coca-Cola 12.1 33.0 2.6 any airline in the government’s $25 billion in-
Campbell Soup 2.8 6.9 2.3 dustry bailout package. Many hedge fund inves-
tors have sold their shares, as has Berkshire Ha-
Source: Factset, Sentieo, CreditSights

thaway. American stock is now worth less than Powell has stopped preaching. Facing the
two-thirds of the $12 billion Parker spent on buy- frightening prospect of widespread corporate in-
backs alone. Despite recent boom times, Ameri- solvencies, the Fed on March 23 announced a
can’s balance sheet is a disgrace. Over the last six credit facility designed to support the corporate
years, Parker added more than $7 billion in net bond market. Two weeks later, the central bank
debt, and today its ratio of net debt to revenue stunned Wall Street by saying it would go into the
is at least double what it was at the end of 2014. open market to buy junk bonds as well as shares
American says it plans to pay down its debt “ag- in high-yield bond ETFs. All told, the Federal Re-
gressively” as soon as business returns to normal. serve is now earmarking $750 billion, support- 55
Debt-laden American Airlines is not an outlier ed by $75 billion from taxpayers, to help large
among the nation’s largest corporations, though. companies survive the pandemic—all part of its
C O R P O R AT E D E BT
If anything, its financial gymnastics might well $2.3 trillion rescue package.
have been a playbook for boardrooms around the “We have a buyer and lender of last resort, cush-
country. Year after year, as the Federal Reserve ioning pain but taking over the role of the free
pumped liquidity into the economy, some of the market,” groused Howard Marks, the billionaire
biggest firms in the United States—AT&T, Coca-
Cola, Exxon, FedEx, General Motors, IBM, Mc-
Donald’s, Merck and 3M—have binged on low-
interest debt. Most of them borrowed more than
they needed, often returning it to shareholders in
the form of buybacks and dividends. They also
went on acquisition sprees. Their actions drove
the S&P 500 index ever higher—by 13.5% on av-
erage annually from 2010 through 2019—and
with it came increasingly rich pay packages for
the CEOs leading the charge. The coup de grâce
was President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, which added Since 2014, McDonald’s has been
even more helium to this corporate-debt balloon. able to return more than $50 billion
According to a Forbes investigation, which an-
alyzed 455 companies in the S&P 500 Index—ex- to its shareholders. The special sauce
cluding banks and cash-rich tech giants like Ap- in its success? Debt.
ple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft—on aver-
age, businesses in the index nearly tripled their
net debt over the past decade, adding some $2.5 cofounder of Oaktree Capital, in a memo April 14.
trillion in leverage to their balance sheets. The “When people get the feeling that the govern-
analysis shows that for every dollar of revenue ment will protect them from [the] unpleasant fi-
growth over the past decade, the companies add- nancial consequences of their actions, it’s called
ed almost a dollar of debt. Most S&P 500 firms ‘moral hazard.’ People and institutions are pro-
entered the bull market with just 20 cents in net tected from pain, but bad lessons are learned.”
debt per dollar of annual revenue; today that fig- The lesson to corporate-debt junkies is clear:
ure has climbed to 38 cents. Taxpayers be damned, the federal spigot is wide
But as the coronavirus pandemic cripples com- open. In March and April alone, according to Re-
merce worldwide, American corporations face a finitiv, no fewer than 392 companies issued $617
grim reality: Revenues have evaporated, but their billion in bonds and notes, including a record
crushing debt isn’t going anywhere. A year ago, number of triple-B issues, piling on still more
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell sound- debt that they may not be able to pay back. As
ed an alarm, but he could barely be heard above Warren Buffett observed during Berkshire’s an-
the roar of the ascendant stock market. “Not only nual shareholder meeting on May 2, “Every one of
is the volume of debt high,” said Powell last May, those people that issued bonds in late March and
“but recent growth has also been concentrated in April ought to send a thank-you letter to the Fed.”
the riskier forms of debt. . . . Among investment-
grade bonds, a near-record fraction is at the low-
A
est rating—a phenomenon known as the ‘tri- merica’s foremost corpo-
ple-B cliff.’” Powell was referring to the fact that rate citizens—companies found
a large number of companies’ bonds were dan- in nearly every retirement ac-
MCDONALD’S
gerously close to junk status. “Investors, financial count—did not become debt de-
institutions and regulators need to focus on this pendents all by themselves. It
risk today, while times are good.” took some prodding, mostly by Wall Street’s sav-

viest participants. Take the case of McDonald’s, its equipment and selling its food.
known for restaurants in nearly every town in the The new and improved “asset light” McDon-
U.S., its iconic golden arches offering fast, bud- ald’s no longer manages cumbersome assets; in-
get-friendly meals to billions. stead, it receives those payments and is sitting on
It all started before the 2008 crisis, when bil- tens of billions in debt. From 2014 through the
lionaire investor Bill Ackman began agitating end of 2019, McDonald’s issued some $21 billion
the Chicago-based burger behemoth, demanding in bonds and notes. It also repurchased more
that it divest most of its 9,000 company-owned than $35 billion in stock and paid out $19 bil-
56 stores to independent operators in order to buy lion in dividends, returning over $50 billion to
back $12.6 billion in stock. McDonald’s success- shareholders, far in excess of its profit ($31 bil-
fully repelled the hedge fund activist, but during lion) over that period. That was just fine by Wall
the recovery, its growth stalled. Starting in 2014, Street. McDonald’s became a hedge fund dar-
McDonald’s chief executive, Don Thompson, be- ling, its shares more than doubling during East-
gan piling on leverage to fund share repurchas- erbrook’s tenure, from 2015 to 2019. His reward
es. A year later his successor, Steve Easterbrook, was $78 million in generous pay packages over
amped up Thompson’s strategy by selling com- five years.
pany-operated restaurants to franchisees, just as The risk added to McDonald’s balance sheet
Ackman had wanted. Today, 93% of the 38,695 has been dramatic, however. In 2010, the com-
McDonald’s worldwide are operated by small en- pany carried just 38 cents in net debt per dollar
trepreneurs who cover maintenance costs and of annual sales, but by the time Easterbrook was
pay the parent company rent and royalties for fired in late 2019 amid news of a workplace af-
the privilege of operating in its buildings, using fair, it had $1.58 in net debt per dollar of revenue.
R AC E TO T H E TO P
CORPORATE DEBT HAS SKYROCKETED TO MORE THAN $10 TRILLION, ACCORDING TO
THE ST. LOUIS FED, BUT IT MAY ULTIMATELY BE OVERTAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT. SAID
JEROME POWELL ON 60 MINUTES: “WE’RE NOT OUT OF AMMUNITION BY A LONG SHOT.”
$12,000 B
Nonfinancial corporate Total assets of the
business; debt securities and Federal Reserve
loans; liability, level
$10,000 B
$8,000 B
$6,000 B
$4,000 B
$2,000 B
0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

into the coronavirus economy, Yum was a basket
case, but thanks to the Fed and a $600 million
bond issue in April, it will live to see another day.
Yum management scoffs at the idea that the
Fed helped in any way. “We’re not aware of Fed-
eral Reserve intervention in the high-yield mar-
ket or in our ability to issue $600 million of
high-yield bonds,” the company says. Like Mc-
Donald’s, Yum sold many of its company-owned 57
outlets to independent franchisees. Without ac-
cess to capital markets and the Fed’s largesse,
their future isn’t so certain. Yum is giving some
Even Warren Buffett’s Berkshire of its franchise owners a 60-day grace period to
Hathaway got caught up in the great make their royalty payments. David Gibbs, who
replaced Creed as CEO in January, speculated at
debt binge. His investment in debt-laden the end of April that if need be it would take over
Kraft Heinz has been a big loser. the franchises and sell them off.
Of course, some argue that the de facto lever-
aged buyouts of publicly traded companies like
McDonald’s and Yum were actually prudent giv-
Today its net debt stands at $33 billion, nearly en the Fed’s decade-long easy-money approach
five times greater than before the financial crisis. to monetary policy. “As a corporate finance mat-
Its bonds are rated triple-B, two notches above ter, it was almost irresponsible to overfinance
junk, down from their A rating in 2015. with equity given that [debt] was unbelievably
With most of its restaurants nearly empty dur- cheap,” says Arena Investors’ Dan Zwirn.
ing the pandemic, McDonald’s stock initially fell According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, as
by almost 40%. Thanks to the Fed’s intervention, of the end of 2019, non-financial business debt
though, McDonald’s debt, which at first slumped totaled $10 trillion, climbing 64% from the be-
to 78 cents on the dollar, recovered along with ginning of the decade. “Every penny of the quan-
the stock, as the company quickly raised an addi- titative easing by the Fed translated into an equal
tional $3.5 billion. McDonald’s insists that it en- match of corporate debt that went into share
tered the crisis with a strong balance sheet and buybacks, which ultimately drove the share
overall financial health. It recently suspended its count of the S&P 500 to the lowest level in two
share repurchases. decades,” says economist David Rosenberg. “This
The startling truth, though, is that the burger was a debt bubble of historic proportions. . . .
giant’s leverage is actually modest compared to Then again, nobody seemed to mind as long as
one of its foremost competitors, Yum Brands, the the gravy train was still operating.”
$5.6 billion (revenue) owner of Pizza Hut, Taco
Bell and KFC. After Greg Creed took charge as
I
CEO in 2015, activist hedge fund managers Keith f there were an award given for
Meister, of Corvex Management, and Daniel corporate recklessness, howev-
Loeb, of Third Point, took big positions. By Oc- er, few would challenge mighty
tober of that year, Meister was on Yum’s board of Boeing, the world’s largest aero-
directors; days after his appointment, the com- space and defense manufactur-
pany said it was “committed to returning sub- er and the nation’s single biggest exporter. Once
stantial capital to shareholders” and spinning off the pride of industrial ingenuity in America, Boe-
its Yum China division, which generated 39% of ing has been hypnotized by the lure of financial
its profits. engineering. Starting in 2013, the Chicago-based
Over the next year, Creed borrowed $5.2 bil- company decided it would make sense to commit
lion to fund $7.2 billion of stock buybacks and nearly every penny of profit, and then some, to its
dividends. Yum retired some 31% of its common shareholders. It sent $64 billion out the door—
shares, and as expected, its stock price doubled $43 billion worth of buybacks and $21 billion in
to over $100 by the end of 2019. Shareholders dividends—saving little under CEO Dennis Mui-
were thrilled, but Yum’s financial staying pow- lenberg to cushion against the industry’s expect-
er was severely compromised. In 2014, Yum had ed hazards, such as manufacturing difficulties,
just $2.8 billion of net debt, accounting for 42% labor disputes and recessions.
of net revenue; by 2020, that figure had swelled After two of its 737 MAX planes crashed with-
HEINZ
to $10 billion, or 178% of net revenue. Heading in five months and the FAA grounded the air-

S E L F- I N F L I C T E D
WO U N D S
Shocking as the pandemic of 2020
has been to the global economy, the
fallout from a decade of debt binges
by corporate giants might be only
beginning. The landscape is littered with
companies suffering from self-inflicted
58
wounds. A prolonged recession could
push some overleveraged firms toward
insolvency, especially if interest rates rise
Given its woes, much of Altria’s
and the Treasury’s multitrillion-dollar

$12.8 billion investment in e-cigarette “save the economy at any price” plan
makes inflation do the same. Here are
maker Juul may vaporize—but five standouts:
the avalanche of debt it has issued 1. Altria
isn’t going away. The seller of Marlboro cigarettes increased
its net debt from $10 billion to $26 billion
over the past decade, spending most of
its operating cash flow on dividends and
share repurchases and wasting $15 bil-
craft in 2019, Boeing’s aggressive financial pol- lion on stakes in Juul Labs and cannabis
icies were exposed, and it was forced to turn to company Cronos Group with little payoff.
The cigarette merchant now holds roughly
debt markets for emergency cash. The compa- $1.30 of net debt per dollar of annual rev-
ny, which had essentially no debt in 2016, end- enue, up from 58 cents in 2010.
ed 2019 with $17 billion in net debt. This March,
Boeing drew fully on a $13.8 billion credit line 2. IBM
The tech giant has been a buyback cham-
to contend with the grounding of air travel, and
pion for years, paying 90% of its free cash
Standard & Poor’s downgraded its credit rating flow to shareholders to return $125 billion
to the lowest rung of investment-grade. to them from 2010 to 2019. Big Blue’s debt,
Boeing flirted with a bailout, initially asking including customer financing, has grown
the government for $60 billion for the aerospace from 17% of net revenue to 70%, with $52
billion in net debt currently outstanding.
industry. But in late April, chief financial officer
Greg Smith told investors the Defense Depart- 3. General Dynamics
ment was taking steps to bolster its liquidity, and Known for its Navy ships, Gulfstream
that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic jets and government contracts, General
Dynamics had little debt in 2010, but since
Security (CARES) Act had helped it defer some
CEO Phebe Novakovic took over in 2013, it
tax payments. Boeing also began weighing fund- has bought back about $13 billion in stock
ing options from programs run by the Treasury and paid out $6 billion in dividends, finish-
and Fed. “We believe that government support ing last year with $11 billion of net debt.
will be critical to ensuring our industry’s access
4. O’Reilly Automotive
to liquidity,” said Boeing’s new CEO, David Cal- The $10 billion (revenue) Missouri-based
houn, on April 29. The next day, Boeing launched auto-parts retailer, has been one of the
a $25 billion bond offering, eliminating the need decade’s stock market darlings. The fam-
for a direct bailout. The issuance, which in- ily-run business discovered cheap debt in
the 2010s, using it to buy back $12 billion in
cludes bonds that aren’t redeemable until 2060,
stock and retire nearly half its outstanding
was oversubscribed, as institutional investors no shares. Over the decade, its net debt bal-
doubt assumed that Boeing’s recovery was a mat- looned almost 12-fold to $4 billion. O’Reilly
ter of national importance to the government. took on another $500 million, just in case,
While delivering cash back to shareholders on March 25.
was an obsession of Boeing’s CEO, becoming a 5. 3M
giant in entertainment via acquisitions has been For most of its 118-year history, the Minneso-
the hallmark of Randall Stephenson’s 13-year ta-maker of N95 masks, Post-It notes and
tenure as CEO of AT&T. Since his start atop the Scotch tape carried almost no leverage.
From 2010 to today, however, its net debt
143-year-old company once revered as Ma Bell,
has swollen roughly 17-fold to more than
Stephenson has spent more than $200 billion— $18 billion, or 60% of revenue. Standard &
mostly on acquisitions of DirecTV and Time Poor’s downgraded 3M’s bonds in February,
ALTRIA
Warner, among others, but also on stock buy- and it was among the first issuers to tap
backs and the telecom’s $2 annual dividend. All unfrozen bond markets in late March.

told, Stephenson piled on almost $100 billion in gorging and buybacks caused its stock to soar,
new net debt. “AT&T is the most indebted nonfi- AT&T’s shares have gone nowhere for a decade.
nancial company the world has ever seen,” says What the debt-dependent duo do have in com-
telecom analyst Craig Moffett. mon is that financially, at least, they bear little re-
Hedge fund shareholder Elliott Management semblance to their former blue-chip selves.
minces few words when it comes to Stephenson’s Even Berkshire Hathaway got caught up in
antics: “It has become clear that AT&T acquired the great debt binge. In 2013, Buffett teamed up
DirecTV at the absolute peak of the linear TV with Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital, co-
market,” Elliott said of the $67 billion purchase in founded by billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, to 59
a September 2019 letter to the board. As for the buy H.J. Heinz for $28 billion and, two years
$109 billion Stephenson spent on Time Warner, later, Kraft Foods for $47 billion. The resulting
“AT&T has yet to articulate a clear strategic ratio- company was stocked with brands of yore such
nale for why AT&T needs to own Time Warner.” as Jell-O, Velveeta and Oscar Mayer—as well as
Elliott, long known for rattling corporate cag- $30 billion of debt. After floating a $143 billion
es, contends that Stephenson’s worst deal was takeover of Unilever that would have reportedly
his $39 billion run at T-Mobile in 2011. “Possibly required $90 billion of additional debt, business
the most damaging deal was the one not done,” at the massive food conglomerate began to spoil.
Elliott said in the same letter, referring to the Kraft’s market capitalization has plunged from
year-long waste of corporate resources capped $118 billion at its peak in February 2017 to $38
by AT&T’s ultimate withdrawal from the deal, billion, and Berkshire Hathaway’s shares, which
which forced it to pay T-Mobile a record $6 bil- are carried on its books at $13.8 billion, now
lion breakup fee. “[AT&T] capitalized a viable trade for just $10 billion. In February, both S&P
competitor for years to come,” Elliott’s letter said. and Fitch cut Kraft’s bonds to junk. Kraft Heinz
Elliott and other investors were no doubt feeling maintains that its balance sheet, and the demand
ripped off by AT&T. Unlike Boeing, whose debt for its brands, are strong.
In the oil patch, meanwhile, many are too sick
even to take advantage of the Fed’s generosity.
Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum,
CEO Vicki Hollub has boosted has increased its net debt nearly fivefold since
TIM PANNELL FOR FORBES
Occidental Petroleum’s net debt she took over in 2016, to $36 billion, not count-
nearly fivefold since 2016. ing the $10 billion in preferred financing Hol-
lub took from Buffett. Her $55 billion takeover
Covid-19 and oil’s collapse have of Anadarko Petroleum closed last August—just
put Oxy on bankruptcy watch. in advance of the worst oil-price plunge since the
1980s as Russia and Saudi Arabia flooded mar-
kets with supply early this year. With West Tex-
as Intermediate crude hovering near $30 a bar-
rel as of press time, Occidental looks to be head-
ing for restructuring or even bankruptcy.
If Oxy is allowed to go bust, though, it will
probably be the exception. The U.S. government
can’t afford to let market forces alone dictate the
future of too many companies. Already, retailers
Neiman Marcus, J.Crew and JCPenney have filed
for bankruptcy. The Fed has made it clear that to
try to avoid global economic devastation worse
than that seen during the Great Depression, it
regards the nation’s largest publicly traded com-
panies as, basically, too big to fail. “The Fed and
Treasury have essentially created a new mor-
al hazard by socializing credit risk,” wrote Scott
Minerd, CIO of Guggenheim Partners. Black-
Rock is predicting an expansion of the Fed’s bal-
ance sheet by a “staggering” $7 trillion by the end
of the year. In some ways, it seems, the Fed’s ac-
tions are tantamount to trying to cure addiction
by increasing the dosage of the very substance
the addict is abusing.

T H E S AG A
60
WORST.
DEAL.
EVER.
BY N OA H K I R S C H

61
After Eric Baker was fired

from StubHub, the ticketing
giant he cofounded, he raised
$4 billion to buy it back—
weeks before coronavirus
destroyed the business.
Revenge isn’t always sweet.
SHUTTERSTOCK
AUGUST 2020
dustry locked down,” says Eric Fuller, a consul-
tant who tracks the ticketing market. Though
the firms have limited overhead—they stock no
It’s
inventory of their own—Fuller thinks StubHub
could soon file for bankruptcy unless it secures
a bailout. (StubHub declined to comment, but a
spokeswoman told the Sports Business Journal
in April that it “is not going bankrupt.”)
62 It gets worse. The British government launched
an antitrust investigation into the acquisition,
forcing Viagogo and StubHub to keep operating
THE SAGA
separately for now. Viagogo says it is cooperat-

ing with what it calls a routine investigation. Not
only has that delayed efforts to streamline the
businesses, but Baker can’t even call the manage-
ment team at StubHub to help them navigate the
crisis, even though he owns it.
Success is nearly always a matter of some luck
and good timing. In this case, Baker—who de-
clined repeated requests for a follow-up inter-
view—had neither. It’s rare that you can judge a
deal within months of completion, but the verdict
on this one is absolute: Baker’s purchase of Stub-
Thanksgiving Eve 2019, and Eric Baker is already celebrating. “There Hub will go down as one of the worst deals in his-
has never been a better time to be in live events,” tory, closed just days before the pandemic eviscer-
he says giddily, knowing that he’s positioned to ated the live-events business that, with regard to
profit from pretty much all of them. Two days ticket reselling, he had so gleefully cornered.
earlier, Baker had announced the biggest deal of
his life. His online ticket marketplace, Viagogo,
B
would buy its larger rival StubHub from eBay for aker’s résumé—Harvard, Stan-
$4 billion. It was a tale, for Baker, of triumph and ford, McKinsey, Bain—reads like a
revenge. He had cofounded StubHub at Stanford manual on how to get rich. Credit
Business School; then his cofounder kicked him that trajectory, perhaps, partly to
out, spurring him to launch Viagogo overseas. the dynasty in which he grew up.
November’s announcement offered Baker a shot His maternal grandfather was a real estate entre-
at redemption. “It’s personally satisfying to have preneur, and his paternal grandfather ran Baker
my two babies together and be able to reunite Industries, a security company that operated ar-
them,” he said then. mored cars. Baker’s father, Malcolm, eventual-
Three months later, on February 13, the deal ly took over the family business, which was ac-
closed. Baker, 47, whose company had paid with quired in 1977 for $118 million (roughly $500
a combination of $2 billion in debt and $2 bil- million today).
lion in cash, had created a global colossus that “It was always driven into me, the excitement
sold millions of event tickets last year, bringing of trying to build something, be your own boss,
in $1.5 billion in combined annual revenue. His control your own destiny,” Baker says. “I didn’t
23% stake in the new firm put him close to be- really know how that would manifest.” He start-
coming a billionaire. ed by enrolling at Harvard, where he studied
Then came the pandemic. government, then followed a frequently trodden
As the coronavirus rippled further into Asia, path to McKinsey in search of “a lot of money.”
then across Europe and into North America, But he quickly grew bored. “It wasn’t necessari-
stadiums shuttered, artists canceled tours and ly for me,” he said in a 2012 interview. “It’s a lot
Broadway shows went on hiatus—wiping out at of very high-IQ people who aren’t tremendous-
least 90% of StubHub and Viagogo’s revenues, an- ly commercial all the time.” Two years into the
alysts estimate. StubHub furloughed two-thirds of job, in 1997, Baker jumped to the private equi-
its U.S. staff in late March. Around the same time, ty firm Bain Capital, helmed at the time by Mitt
Moody’s downgraded the companies’ outlook Romney. “Obviously, I was the low man on the
from stable to negative. totem pole,” he says, but “I learned more in my
“[It’s a] spectacular misfortune to have shelled two years at Bain Capital than anywhere else I’ve
out $4 billion four weeks before the entire in- ever been.”

63
ERIC BAKER
It was during his time at Bain, according to gree. The two entered a version of Baker’s con- StubHub partnered
with lending com-
Baker, that he first hatched the idea for an on- cept into Stanford’s annual business-plan company Affirm this year
line ticket marketplace. His girlfriend wanted petition. Among dozens of entries, they were to let buyers finance
tickets to the Super
to see The Lion King on Broadway, but tickets named one of six finalists. Bowl—at sky-high in-
were scarce, requiring him to look on the second- But on the day of the finals, the pair didn’t terest rates ranging
FOCUS ON SPORTS/GETTY IMAGES
from 10% to 30%.

ary market. “ ‘How do you do it?’ ” he remembers show up. “We wanted to stay under the radar
thinking. “ ‘Do I go on a street corner?’ I’d have screen of potential competitors,” says Fluhr,
to look online and find a ticket broker and pay who has since cofounded the VC firm Craft Ven-
through the nose. It wasn’t a lot of fun.” tures, which has made investments in Silicon
He kept the idea in his back pocket until he Valley-based home-improvement site Houzz,
landed at Stanford Business School the next fall. internet telephony firm Twilio and New York-
There he met Jeff Fluhr, a square-jawed first- based online eyeglass retailer Warby Parker,
year student with his own private equity pedi- among others.

From there, the founders’ paths diverged announcement,” Baker told Forbes. “I think they
for the first time. Fluhr dropped out of school were shocked.” He had little time to revel in his
to work on the business with a small team, in- revenge. The next year, eBay acquired StubHub
cluding Jeff Lawson, who is now the billionaire for $310 million. Baker opposed the deal, think-
founder of Twilio. It was risky: The dot-com bub- ing Fluhr & Co. had sold out too early, as he later
ble had just burst. “We were sort of swimming told the Wall Street Journal. Outvoted, he pock-
against the current,” Fluhr says. eted the cash and returned his focus to Europe.
Baker stayed back at Stanford, though he of- Employing a business model similar to Stub-
64 fered input on the side and retained an equity Hub’s, Viagogo attracted a glitzy roster of in-
stake. “He didn’t initially want to commit,” says vestors including Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi and
an early StubHub employee. The site launched LVMH’s billionaire founder, Bernard Arnault.
THE SAGA
in October 2000 without him. Lest he be forced out of yet another company,
By the time Baker rejoined in June 2001 as Baker gave himself supervoting shares that guar-
president, Fluhr, who was then CEO and the anteed him total control. “I modeled it after Putin
firm’s largest individual sharehold-
er, had already substantially refined
the business plan: Brokers or reg-
ular ticket holders could list their
tickets on the site; StubHub would
take a cut from both buyer and sell-
er. (Its fees now average 23%.)
By 2004, even as business was
booming, the founders were clash-
ing. According to a later report in
Fortune, Baker wanted to focus
on partnerships with major sports
leagues, while Fluhr sought to grow
StubHub as an independent en-
tity. “It’s not the first time people
have [had] a falling-out,” Baker said
last November. “Just the way things
were structured, Jeff owned a little
bit more stock than I did.” Accord-
ing to Baker, the board and Fluhr
wanted him out. “They just said . . .
‘You’re gone. You’re fired. Leave.’”
Baker thought about traveling
the world for a year. Then he had a better idea. and the Politburo,” he quipped in 2012—years be- Jeff Fluhr, StubHub’s
cofounder, cashed
When he left StubHub, the company had never fore self-imploding founders Adam Neumann out in 2007. He tried
asked him to sign a noncompete agreement. “I and Travis Kalanick made such terms unsavory. the startup thing
again in 2012 with
think the thought process was, well, ‘Gosh, Eric is Baker claims Viagogo grew faster than StubHub Spreecast, a social
the second-largest shareholder, he’s not going to did in its early years, and by 2011 the platform video platform, but
it shut down four
compete,’” Baker recalls. That was wrong. Barely was processing hundreds of millions of dollars in years later.
a month after getting let go, while planning the transactions each year. By 2019 it processed bil-
first leg of his trip, to London, Baker realized his lions, profitably. Forbes estimates its gross profit
former colleagues were years away from expand- margin stood at 25% last year, even as it compet-
ing into Europe. He decided to beat them to it. ed in a crowded field against Ticketmaster, Vivid
Seats, Eventbrite, SeatGeek and, yes, StubHub—
whose margin was slightly lower.
W
earing a powder-blue button- But a litany of negative press accompanied that
up—no tie, as always—Baker ascent: Artists griped over inflated ticket prices;
made his grand reveal in Eu- customers complained of hidden fees and coun-
rope in August 2006. After a terfeit listings. In 2018, Margot James, then the
year of stealthy planning, he held U.K.’s Minister for Digital and the Creative Indus-
a press launch for Viagogo, flanked by execu- tries, declared on BBC Radio: “Don’t choose Via-
JEFF CHIU/AP
tives from Manchester United and Chelsea Foot- gogo. They are the worst.”
ball Club, its inaugural partners. “[StubHub] “There’s always been controversy,” Baker told
didn’t know that I’d done it until we made the Forbes in November. “You’ve got to educate peo-

ple when you’re disrupting things. . . . We need lion. The company declined to comment.) “A lot
to do a better job of that. And that’s what we’ve of these companies that live month to month or
been doing.” on three-month horizons are going to have issues
surviving,” says Fred Rosen, who ran Ticketmas-
ter from 1982 to 1997. But, he adds, “The min-
B
ack in the U.S., eBay, StubHub’s ute live acts [start] again, there would be Stub-
parent, was under pressure of its Hub 2. . . . The concept of the business doesn’t go
own. For nearly a year, the com- away. It’s a question of how long can you survive
66 bative billionaire Paul Singer and when it’s raining?”
his hedge fund, Elliott Manage- For now, Baker’s firms are still solvent. In
ment, had been needling the firm to sell off non- March, Moody’s reported they had over $400
THE SAGA
core assets, including StubHub. And Elliott rare- million in cash, enough for at least a few months,
ly loses a fight. Singer famously spent 15 years the agency posited. There are also the deep pock-
warring with the government of Argentina over ets of Baker’s investors, assuming they would risk
bond payments, which resulted in a $2.4 billion throwing more money at a company with an un-
payout to his firm in 2016. In this case, for eBay, certain future.
that proved a huge stroke of luck.
For his part, Baker refused to worry, even
Viagogo gained
when the World Health Organization labeled credibility thanks to
Covid-19 a global health emergency on January early investors such
as (from top) tennis
30, two weeks before the deal closed. The shot at pros Steffi Graf and
redemption was just too enticing to pass up: He Andre Agassi, and
luxury-goods titan
had learned a hard lesson years earlier when he Bernard Arnault,
decided not to drop out of Stanford and go all in whose Groupe Arnault
is still an investor.
on StubHub, costing him equity and, eventual-
ly, his job. This time he wagered with conviction.
He went ahead with the deal, funding it with
debt as well as more money from his top two in-
vestors: the VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners
and Madrone Capital Partners, a private invest-
ment firm affiliated with the Walton family, of
Walmart. (Neither would comment for this sto-
ry.) As Baker calmly noted on CNBC just after
the acquisition, “Right now, [the virus] has been
isolated to Asia.” Baker’s confidence now looks
brash from the vantage point of a world that
changed overnight. Cancellations came crashing
down like a tsunami: Madonna, March Madness,
Nascar, South by Southwest, Broadway, Okto-
berfest in Munich and Wimbledon.
RINDOFF PETROFF/SUU/GETTY IMAGES; CHRISTOPHE MORIN/BLOOMBERG

Customers demanded refunds en masse. In
the U.S., StubHub balked, except where legal-
ly prevented from doing so. Instead it began of-
fering vouchers worth 120% of the original pur-
chase price—a reversal of its usual refund policy. The problem is that nobody knows what comes
The problem: It didn’t have the money. For years, next. StubHub and Viagogo will likely be some of
StubHub operated on a “float” system. When it the last businesses to rebound. They rely not just
processed a transaction, it immediately gave the on live events—which will likely need a vaccine
seller its cut of a ticket sale, even if the event was before they can fully recover—but also on excess
months away. Once the coronavirus hit, clawing demand for those events that forces buyers to the
back payment from thousands of sellers simulta- secondary market. That could take years. “We
neously was unlikely. think we’re at the intersection of two very good
“There’s no possibility that they could refund trends,” Baker said prior to the acquisition. “One
all the money without raising additional funds,” is what I call globalization, because the world is
says Eric Fuller, the live-events consultant. Cue a smaller place, and two is live events.” Then the
the social-media firestorm and, possibly, law- winds changed direction, and carried with them
suits. (In April, a Wisconsin man filed a class- Baker’s momentum. He closed the loop on his
action suit against StubHub, seeking $5 mil- story. Just not the way he wanted.

Tech for Good is a series of four half-hour programs
hosted by Kristie Lu Stout on CNN International.
Each show highlights extraordinary people who

are dreaming big and defying the odds thanks
to innovative, life-changing technology.
Coming soon in August

For times please go to edition.cnn.com
CNN name, logo and all associated elements & © 2020 Cable News Network. A WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
TM
THE PROFILE
STOPPING
68
THE PANDEMIC
Jeff Skoll has funded pandemic
preparedness for over a decade,
longer than Bill Gates. Now he’s
increased his philanthropic giving
to combat Covid-19.
BY K E R RY A . D O L A N
AND THE
NEXT ONE
Jude Law in a bio-
hazard suit during
a scene in 2011
film Contagion,
produced by
Warner Brothers
and Skoll’s
Participant Media,
69
J E F F S KO L L
→ Nine years ago, Jeff Skoll’s
When They See Us and the 2016 Academy Award
best picture winner Spotlight, about The Boston
Globe’s investigations into child sexual abuse by
film company Participant Catholic priests.

While his impassioned filmmaking pretty
Media partnered with much ground to a halt temporarily with Califor-

nia’s shelter-in-place orders, his 2011 movie Con-
tagion has become the must watch-at-home hit
Warner Brothers to put out of the pandemic—it’s the number one selling title
to date this year, according to Warner Brothers,
Contagion, a movie about a the distributor. (It won’t disclose the number of
times it’s been rented or sold.) In late March, Par-
ticipant, Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns
global pandemic that started and director Steven Soderbergh worked with
Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne
with a virus from a bat. and other cast members to produce public ser-
COURTESY OF SKOLL FOUNDATION; WARNER BROS. PICTURES/ALBUM/NEWSCOM
vice announcements about washing your hands

and staying home.
Beyond backing a movie about a pandemic,
An American businesswoman, played by Gwyn- Skoll has been funding pandemic preparedness
eth Paltrow, comes home from a trip to China and and prevention since 2009—six years before Bill
unknowingly spreads a novel, and at times, dead- Gates’ now well known TED talk warning about
ly disease. While many viewed the film as science them—through the Skoll Global Threats Fund,
fiction, Skoll had ulterior motives. He hoped the to which he pledged $100 million. (The other
movie would help build support for funding the threats: climate change, water scarcity, nuclear
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weapons and conflict in the Middle East.)
and also warn the world about the potential dan- Since the start of this year, Skoll has contrib-
gers of a global pandemic. uted an additional $200 million to his charita-
Skoll, 55, became a billionaire just over two ble foundation—$100 million of which was an-
decades ago as a result of stock he received as nounced in late April and will go toward fight-
eBay’s first president. He left eBay in 2001 and ing Covid-19. He put the other $100 million in
has since co-produced more than 100 films and earlier this year, he tells Forbes, adding that he
TV programs, all with socially relevant themes hadn’t bothered to publicize it. “I don’t see this
including the climate change documentary An as a money squirt,” Skoll explains. “This is a re-
Inconvenient Truth featuring Al Gore, factory source allocation to an area we know well. And
farming documentary Food Inc., the miniseries this is an emergency.”

Newly bulked up, the Skoll Foundation prom- preneurs that the Skoll Foundation has support-
ised to quadruple its grantmaking this year to ed are operating.
$200 million. New beneficiaries in 2020 include In early February, the Skoll Foundation made
some of the poorest folks in Los Angeles and the its first Covid-19 related grant: $3 million to the
contact-tracing program being launched across African Field Epidemiology Network, a group
California. “This is the rainy day we’ve all been working with the African Centres for Disease
saving for,” Skoll says of his charitable giving. “If Control and Prevention (the Africa CDC) to help
not now, when?” coordinate African countries’ response and to
70 He’s been working up to 20 hours a day in his boost surveillance and detection. The Bill & Me-
kitchen in Beverly Hills—on a call in early June, linda Gates Foundation donated to the same
he jokes that it’s his “command center,” equipped group around the same time. Beginning with
THE PROFILE
with a couple of iPads, a MacBook and some those two grants, says Africa CDC Director Dr.
bluetooth devices—talking to people around John Nkengasong, “we were able to rally rapid re-
the globe, taking the pulse of the pandemic and sponders to Addis Ababa [for training] and send
searching out individuals, organizations and them to Nigeria and Cameroon. We were able to
companies with new ideas. “Just the science, the scale up diagnostics.” Funding from others then
learnings of the virus—almost every day there’s followed, including the MasterCard foundation,
some revelation that we didn’t know,” says Skoll. Germany, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.
The pandemics research that Skoll started In March, it made a grant to the Southern Af-
funding through the Skoll Global Threats Fund rican Center for Infectious Disease Surveillance
spun off into a nonprofit called Ending Pan- Foundation (SACIDS) and a similar group in East
demics in January 2018, with a seed grant from Africa. One outcome: Mozambique, which had the
Skoll. “It’s all about early detection and rapid re- infrastructure to test for Covid-19 but limited mon-
sponse,” says Ending Pandemics President Dr. ey to buy tests, got the needed funds and ramped
Mark Smolinski. up testing four-fold, according to Smolinski.
The Skoll foundation’s next move was to quick-
ly create a fund for both its current and past
S
koll got wind of the novel coro- grantees—mostly social entrepreneurs. Sixty-
navirus early on, back in Decem- four organizations were given $50,000 grants.
ber—where it started. “We had “We figured they would need emergency fund-
colleagues on the ground in Wu- ing,” Skoll explains.
han. We had an idea that a zoo- Though the Skoll Foundation has traditional-
notic disease had jumped to humans,” he says. By ly supported social entrepreneurs who work in
January he and his team began to be concerned lower income countries, in the past few months
about countries with trade ties to China—partic- it has made some donations closer to home. Be-
ularly in Africa, where some of the social entre- cause Los Angeles County has been particular-
Skoll’s Participant
was a co-producer
of the powerful 2019
Netflix miniseries
When They See Us,
directed by Ava Du-
Vernay, about five
Black teens wrong-
fully convicted of a
brutal attack in New
York’s Central Park.
NETFLIX

ly hard hit by the pandemic, Skoll reached out
to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to offer as-
sistance. In late April, his foundation made a $2
million gift to the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles,
which is providing cash assistance to families hit
hardest by Covid-19.
Skoll also connected with California Governor
Gavin Newsom and his senior advisor on social in-
novation, Kathleen Kelly Janus. The Skoll Foun- 71
dation is donating $8 million to support Califor-
nia’s response to Covid-19, starting with $4.1 mil-
J E F F S KO L L
lion for the public awareness campaign around
contact tracing, which Janus says “will be really
critical to preventing a second wave of Covid-19.”
Smolinski’s team, which had already part-
nered with Harvard and Boston Children’s Hos-
pital to build a crowdsourced symptom-report-
ing tracker called Flu Near You in 2012 to show
flu trends in neighborhoods and cities, rolled out Mukherjee applauds Skoll’s approach to phi- Skoll Foundation
hosted Skoll World
Covid Near You in early March. The app lets peo- lanthropy. “Jeff has always been a systems think- Forum each year,
ple anonymously report if they’re feeling healthy er, and that has been transformative for Part- where world’s most
influential social
or not, with zip code info, as a way to track cur- ners In Health,” she says. Skoll also contribut- entrepreneurs, key
rent and potential hotspots. ed funding to an ambitious global project called thought leaders, and
strategic partners
Ending Pandemics has partnered with govern- the Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Net- gather at the Univer-
ments and public health authorities in 36 coun- work—GIDEoN for short—being spearheaded sity of Oxford’s Saïd
Business School. The
tries—11 of which have surveillance systems that by Columbia University epidemiologist Ian Lip- forum went virtual this
year due to Covid-19.
Smolinski says are “up to speed.” One is Cambo- kin, who directs the university’s Center for In-
dia, a country of 14 million people, where all four fection and Immunity. Lipkin has lined up the
telecom companies support a free mobile app equivalent of the National Institutes of Health in
that both receives info about disease and pro- 12 countries including Brazil, China and India,
vides information. Calls have gone from 600 a and together they’ll share information about out-
day before the pandemic to 15,000, and the vast breaks and disease samples. With GIDEoN, Lip-
majority of the Covid-19 cases in the country kin explains, “we’re trying to upgrade the capaci-
were first identified through the hotline, Smo- ty for detecting infectious agents and toxins, par-
linski says. Cambodia, the country that took in a ticularly in the developing world.”
cruise ship no one else wanted, so far has report- While Skoll has been involved in global phi-
ed just 268 cases and no deaths. lanthropy for nearly two decades, he now has an
even more personal reason for being involved in
the fight against deadly diseases. While working
T
hrough the Audacious Project, on Ebola in 2014, he contracted a rare tropical
a philanthropic group with about disease that took two years to diagnose. He took
30 members launched by TED an 18-month medical leave of absence and is feel-
conference curator Chris Ander- ing better now.
son with Jeff Skoll and Richard Despite many challenges, Skoll is an optimist,
Branson, Skoll and others are supporting Bos- even about pandemics. Yes, the number of cases
ton-based Partners in Health, which respond- will likely increase as U.S. states open back up, he
ed to the Ebola crisis in 2014. The multimillion says. But he’s hopeful that a treatment for Covid-
dollar grant from the Audacious Project enables 19-an existing drug—can work and be scaled up
Partners in Health to share its contact tracing for distribution sometime this summer. “I hope
expertise over the coming year with roughly 19 we can get the solutions in place in the next few
COURTESY OF SKOLL FOUNDATION
public health departments across the U.S. “We months. I see a path to it,” he says. As for future
started by helping the state of Massachusetts put pandemics, Skoll sees a silver lining. “There are
together a contact tracing system, and everyone so many zoonotic viruses that jump over from
else wanted to know what we were doing,” says animals to humans. Most of them peter out and
Joia Mukherjee, Chief Medical Officer of Part- turn into something less lethal. I don’t think it’s
ners In Health. “This funding has allowed us to likely that we’ll see any terrible new pandemic
expand our team. What we are hoping is that any time soon, says Skoll. “If anything, the world
state and federal money will be forthcoming.” is on watch now.”

THOUGHTS ON
Ambition
72
“At age 6 I wanted to be a “ There is always room at

cook. At 7 I wanted to be the top.”
Napoleon. And my ambition —Daniel Webster
has been growing steadily
ever since.” “Desire makes everything
—Salvador Dalí blossom; possession makes
everything wither and fade.”
“Would you give up the craft —Marcel Proust
of your hands, and the
passion of your heart, and “All my life I wanted to be
the hunger of your mind, somebody. Now I see that
to buy safety?” I should have been more
—Ursula K. Leguin specific.”
—Jane Wagner
“The future is what matters,
because one never reaches “If you would hit the mark,
it, but always stays in the you must aim a little
present.” above it; every arrow that
—Sylvia Plath flies feels the attraction of
the earth.”
“First things first; second —Henry Wadsworth
things never.” Longfellow
—Shirley Conran
“May He give you the desire
“Fain would I climb, yet fear of your heart and make all
I to fall.” your plans succeed.”
—Walter Raleigh
Alpha Deal Maker —Psalm 20:4
“Ambition, n. An overmas- December, 2017

tering desire to be vilified
by enemies while living
and made ridiculous by
The December 2017 issue featured a profile of Hong Kong’s
friends when dead.” private equity maven Goodwin Gaw, who built his Gaw
—Ambrose Bierce Capital into one of the world’s top 20 largest (by assets) real
estate-focused investment firms, with $13 billion in assets
“Ambition is the growth of under management. Gaw’s focus on property was decidedly
ev’ry clime.”
—William Blake low-tech, the article noted. “Gaw embraces tech, yet he’s
no IT mogul. Quite the contrary: He’s an investment guru
“Well is it known that who digs bricks and mortar.” Now faced with the pandemic,
ambition can creep as well Gaw noted in a recent Forbes Asia Next Frontiers Webinar
as soar.”
—Edmund Burke
that his hotel portfolio took a big hit: “I never would have
imagined, with 36 hotels spanning from Bora Bora in
“ ‘Tis not what a man does the South Pacific, to Japan, all the way to New York and
that exalts him, but what a Spain, we would have 33 hotels closed.” Yet Gaw remains
man would do.” optimistic that real estate will rebound, and the work-from-
—Robert Browning
home trend will fade whenever the pandemic does as well.
“The trouble with fulfilling Working in an office gives “energy and vibe for you to be FINAL THOUGHT
your ambitions is you think actually creative and productive,” says Gaw.
you’ll be transformed into “Ambition is best
some sort of archangel, and SOURCES: POETICAL SKETCHES, BY WILLIAM BLAKE; SAUL, BY ROBERT BROWNING; THE not naked.”
you’re not. You still have to TIMES BOOK OF QUOTATIONS; ELEGIAC VERSE, BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW;
THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY, BY AMBROSE BIERCE; OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN —Malcolm Forbes
wash your socks.” QUOTATIONS; SUPERWOMAN, BY SHIRLEY CONRAN; THE UNABRIDGED JOURNALS OF
—Louis de Bernières SYLVIA PLATH; THE FARTHEST SHORE, BY URSULA K. LEGUIN.

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2 0 0 BE ST U N DE R A B I L LI O N C OMPAN I E S

DISPLAY UNTIL M I D-SEPTEMBER

August 2020 Volume 16 • Number 6

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY SEAN LEE FOR FORBES ASIA

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

10 | Master of Mystery 52 | Dukes of Moral Hazard 10

14 | The Bureaucrat Wrestler

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: STEVE FORBES

FORBES MEDIA EDITORIAL

AUGUST 2020 — VOLUME 16 • NUMBER 6

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

I look for the global economy. It has this dra-

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

8 This Time Is Different. Really.

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

In today’s extreme uncertainty, lands. In many Asian countries, the

of Public Policy, National University of

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

W What’s in the box? No

she says, include adapting intellectual property

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

W Warren Meyer, hospital-

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

water is sizable, perhaps as big as $5 billion. The

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

In its early days,

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

Accel Group Construction Hong Kong 67 9 75

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

China Bright Culture Media China 69 21 452 21

BEST UNDER A BILLION

Global Standard Technology Semiconductors South Korea 144 15 156

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

22 Grace Technology Software Japan 18 6 733

Civil engineering India

Hang Chi Holdings Elder care Hong Kong 22 4 43

PETER DAZELEY/GETTY IMAGES; THOMAS BARWICK/GETTY IMAGES

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

Laserbond Industrial services Australia 16 2 30 23

BEST UNDER A BILLION

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

24 Pro Medicus Healthcare Australia 36 14 1,983

Protec Co. Semiconductors South Korea 154 32 212

YAGI STUDIO/GETTY IMAGES; WITTHAYA PRASONGSIN/GETTY IMAGES

FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2020

COUNTRY/ NET MARKET

Suyog Telematics Telecom India 17 5 38 25

BEST UNDER A BILLION

DATA AS OF JULY 7, 2020

SOURCES: FACTSET, FORBES ASIA

AUGUST 2020 FORBES ASIA

When analysts and

Baillie Gifford partner