Malaysian business Robert Kuok has an estimated net worth of $17.3 billion in May 2019. In 2012, he was named by Forbes as Malaysia's richest man. Since 2002, he has been considered as one of the wealthiest men across Southeast Asia.

Along with his cousin and two brothers, Robert Kuok founded the Kuok Brothers Sdn Bhd in 1949 which was involved in trading agricultural commodities. Ten years later, the Malayan Sugar Manufacturing Co. Bhd was formed. Through the years, he continued investing in sugar refineries, and eventually, he was able to seized 80% of the sugar market in Malaysia.

In 1971, he founded the first Shangrila Hotel in Singapore. Not long after, his second hotel was established in Hong Kong. Today, his company holds investments in numerous countries including Mainland China, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. His business interests include hotels, trading, properties, sugarcane plantation, freight, publishing, finance, flour milling, oil, mining, and sugar refineries.

Robert Kuok was born on the 6th of October, 1923 in Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia