Pierre Chen

Pierre Chen Tai-ming (born 1958) is a Taiwanese businessman, art collector and the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Yageo Corporation, which deals with electronic domains and makes products ranging from mobiles, automobiles, palmtops and desktops. He is 'number 949' in the 2015 Forbes list of billionaires in the world and 'number 14' in Taiwan.^[1]

Biography

He grew up in Kaoshiung in a middle- class Taiwan family . Since childhood he was keen on visiting art galleries and when he became a student in 1976, he decided to buy a wooden sculpture by Hong Kong artist Cheung Yee, which cost 25 000 Taiwanese dollars.^[2] Chen received a BS degree in engineering from NCKU in Taiwan.^[3] Chen founded Yageo in 1977.^[4][5] In 2000 he had purchased some amount of shares in a company Philips by the name of Phycomp for US$575.5 million and became the first person in Taiwan to get an internationally popular company.^[6]

He is the owner of nine factories and offices in 17 countries, and was in charge of in Yageo’s day-to-day management.^[7]

Art collection

Chen is well known as an art collector. He has started collecting since 1976.^[8][9] One of the paintings in his collection is Tamsui, an oil painting by Japanese-period Taiwanese artist Tan Ting-pho. It fetched $4.5 million (NT$144 million), setting the latest world record for a ‘NT $100 million’ purchase of an oil painting by an ethnic Chinese artist.^[10] Chen's art collection is administered through the Yageo Foundation.^[11][12]

Personal life

Chen had a son and twin daughters from his ex-wife. He later married an actress Rosamund Kwan in secret in 2014, due to worries of his two daughters would not be happy with his remarriage. Because of his refusal to go public with the marriage and Kwan not wanting to be his secret wife, they got divorced in 2015 after 8 years of being together.^[13]

References