Kuok Khoon Hong

Kuok Khoon Hong (simplified Chinese: 郭孔丰; traditional Chinese: 郭孔豐; pinyin: Guō Kǒng Fēng; born c. 1949^[1]) is a Singaporean business magnate. The nephew of Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok, he is the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Wilmar International, Asia's leading agribusiness and the "world's largest palm oil trader", and the Chairman of Perennial Real Estate Holdings Ltd.

Career

Kuok earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the National University of Singapore, and began his career in 1973 trading soft commodities at Kuok Oils and Grains, eventually becoming Managing Director of the outfit, and starting the Pasir Gudang Edible Oils refining complex in Johor as well as China's first edible oil refinery, South Seas Oils and Fats.^[2] In 1991, he left the Kuok Group to start Wilmar, with Martua Sitorus as a co-founder.^[3] Starting as a small commodities trading company with S$2m in seed capital from the mortgage of his family bungalow, it grew rapidly with initial growth in the Indonesian edible oil market and development of Sumatran oil palm plantations, followed by a large expansion into edible oil refining in mainland China. In 1994, a meeting with the legendary then-chairman of ADM, Dwayne Andreas, resulted in a US$30m investment into the company after the first meeting. In 2006, Wilmar International launched an Initial Public Offering on the Singapore Stock Exchange with a capitalisation of S$2.38Bn, and in 2007 he agreed with his uncle Robert Kuok to merge the Kuok Group's edible oil, trading and oil palm plantation assets with Wilmar in return for a 31% stake in the company. The merger resulted in the unification of Kuok's previous early career contributions to the Kuok Group with the rapidly growing Wilmar International created with Martua Sitorus from 1991.

Kuok's family investment vehicle HPRY Holdings partly acquired the Aviva Tower in the City of London in 2011 in a joint purchase with Martua Sitorus valued at £290m, which subsequently received planning approval by the City of London for redevelopment into the Eric Parry designed 'Trellis', slated to be at 1000ft the tallest building in the City and the second tallest building in Western Europe.^[1] HPRY is a substantial shareholder in Perennial Real Estate Holdings, which is a developer of commercial mixed use integrated developments and healthcare projects in China. It owns several iconic properties in Singapore including CHIJMES, the Capitol and AXA Tower. In addition to interests in music, media and biotechnology businesses, HPRY was a seed/angel round investor in SEA Ltd, a SouthEast Asian gaming and internet unicorn listed on the NYSE.

Personal life

Kuok was born in the seaside village of Mersing in Johor, Malaysia, and educated at St Joseph's School and the English College, Johor Bahru. His father, Kuok Hock Swee, had arrived in then British Malaya from Foochow in Southern China at the age of 18, later setting up a provision store in Mersing which he expanded into a thriving business distributing foodstuffs along the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. This he subsequently merged with the Kuok Group in exchange for an equity stake.

The Kuok family traces its ancestry to the 8th century Tang Dynasty general Guo Ziyi, whose descendants included several famous generals under Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, and also notably mentioned by the Nestorians as the earliest patron of the Christian Church in Tang Dynasty China.

Kuok is married and has four children - 3 sons and 1 daughter.^[1] His second son, Kuok Meng Ru, is in the music industry, having acquired the music retail company Swee Lee^[4] and a 49% stake in Rolling Stones Magazine, as well as launching the cloud-based music creation platform BandLab Technologies. In 2017 Kuok was estimated by Forbes to be worth US$2.7Bn and ranked as the 8th richest Singaporean.^[1]

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