Asia's real estate industry is thriving nonpareil as far as the Forbes' 2015 world's richest list is concerned.
More than half of the 20 wealthiest real estate magnates are either from Hong Kong (8), China (3), Singapore (1), and Taiwan (1). The top-twenty is also comprised of three Americans, three Europeans, and one from the middle-east. The total number of real-estate billionaires is now 157.
Here's a round-up of five of the wealthiest in the property industry:
1. Lee Shau Kee holds the majority stake at Henderson Land, and has a net worth of $24.8 billion. He is currently 27th on the overall list.
2. Wang Jianlin, who comes in close second with a net worth of $24.2 billion, is the chairman of Dalian Wanda Group. His company is a major player in the commercial and hotel sector in China and Hong Kong.
3. Thomas & Raymond Kwok of the Sun Hung Kai Properties are valued at $15.9 billion. Thomas was convicted for bribery charges in 2014 and has since left the sole leadership role to his brother Raymond.
4. Donald Bren is the only non-Chinese who makes it to the top five. He has control over the Irvine Company which owns numerous real estate properties such as hotels, shopping centers, and apartments.
5. Cheng Yu-tung, with a net worth of $14.2 billion, owns Chow Tai Fook, one of the biggest jewelry chains in Asia, and real estate giant, New World Development.
Business tycoons from the real estate industry made a good account of themselves this year, but still not as prolific as those reigning Tech moguls according to Business Insider. The list was once again dominated by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, and Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation.
The 29th edition of Forbes yearly list of the world's most moneyed people has shown that the number has grown to its highest number in history. The billionaire count now stands at 1,826 thanks to the addition of the new 290 ultra-rich individuals.
Roughly one in every four of these fledgling billionaires who made it on the list for the first time is Chinese. And, if you think that it would take someone an entirety of his own lifetime to amass this seemingly inconceivable amount of prosperity, 46 billionaires made it on the list even before they turned 40 years old.
Among those on the top ten of the list, seven billionaires were from the U.S. lead by one of the founders of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates (second consecutive year); and Warren Buffet, philanthropist and one of the greatest American investors in history.
The amalgamation of the net worth of the 2015 billionaires would amount to well over $7 trillion while each one of them would have an average net worth of $3.86 billion.
