Tsai Wan-lin (
Despite his family background, Tsai rose out of destitution to became one of the nation's legends -- one of those who have developed massive enterprises from scratch.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
At the age of eight, Tsai followed his elder brother, Tsai Wan-chun (
His business career started to take off after he established the Cathay Life Insurance Corp (
Cathay Life later become the flagship of Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控) and the group's main earnings contributor. At the end of June, Cathay Life accounted for 62 percent of Cathay Financial's consolidated assets of NT$2.5 trillion and 58 percent of the financial service company's capital of NT$146.7 billion, according to Taiwan Ratings Corp's (中華信評) statistics.
The family's financial group split in 1979 and in 1985, Tsai Wan-lin formed the Lin Yuan Group (
The group later evolved to include Symphox Information Co (
Earlier this year, Tsai and his family were estimated to hold assets worth US$4.6 billion, ranking 94th richest in the world, according to a Forbes report published in February. The nation's richest man had ranked 88th, 68th and 104th in the magazine's list in the previous three years.
Tsai Wan-lin moved to keep the business in the family. When he was 66, he began to make arrangements for his succession, putting his four sons in the business.
Currently, his second son, Tsai Hong-tu (
His third son, Tsai Cheng-yu (
Tsai's success in amassing a fortune out of nothing came from his bold yet precise investments in real estate. Cathay Life owns 230 buildings nationwide, with many located in prosperous downtown areas such as Taipei Main Station. These buildings contribute billions of NT dollars in rent every year, according to local media reports.
Tsai Wan-lin's younger brother, meanwhile, Tsai Wan-tsai (蔡萬才), is the fifth richest man in the nation, ranking 231 on the Forbes list this year, with US$2.3 billion in assets. Tsai Wan-tsai heads Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the fifth-biggest financial services company with NT$1.26 trillion in assets last year.
Relations between the brothers had been strained for most of last 20 years, however, due to a financial scandal involving their nephew, Tsai Chern-chou (
In 1985, Tsai Chern-chou became embroiled in a controversy after embezzling over NT$7.8 billion from the 10th Credit Cooperative of Taipei (
On the business front, the brothers were rivals as well. The Cathay and Fubon groups have competed for dominance in the financial market.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS