Asia's Self-Made Billionaires

It was an inauspicious beginning. Li Ka-shing fled with his family from mainland China as a young child. At age 15 he dropped out of school when his father died. He worked 16 hours a day as a laborer in a plastics company. By 22, he somehow managed to save enough to start his own business.

Today he controls $47 billion (market cap) conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa and is worth a recent $23 billion, enough to make him the region's richest self-starter.

Li got further with his education than Taiwan billionaire Y.C. Wang. The son of poor tea merchants, he dropped out of elementary school to help his family by selling rice, bricks and wood, before eventually starting Formosa Plastics, the world's largest producer and processor of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). His recent net worth of $5.1 billion ranks him 16th among Asia's self-made class.

When Indian billionaire G.M. Rao flunked the 10th grade, his father urged him to drop out and work with him. Rao persuaded the village doctor, a family friend, to lean on his father to let him return to school. Rao was the first in his family to go to college, earning a mechanical engineering degree. Now he oversees vast construction and engineering projects such as the expansion of New Delhi's airport.

Amazing as these stories are, they are increasingly common in Asia. Five years ago, 39% of the region's billionaires made their fortunes from scratch. The rest inherited all or part of their money. By this past March, 54%, or 87 of the region's 160 billionaires, were self-made.

That's lower than the global average--nearly two-thirds of the 946 billionaires we ranked in March were self-made--but Asia's percentage will likely jump in the next year or so, thanks to a new class of Chinese tycoons. According to our China rich list, published in October, the nation is now home to 66 billionaires (46 more than last year), only three of whom inherited part or all of their fortune.

Not all of these self-made billionaires have rags-to-riches stories. Some come from working- or middle-class backgrounds and asked their parents for small loans.

India's telecom tycoon Sunil Mittal started his first business in 1976 with $1,500 borrowed from his father. Others traveled overseas to study. Malaysia's Ananda Krishnan got his undergraduate degree in Australia and an M.B.A. at Harvard.
Japan's Masayoshi Son reportedly made his first fortune while still a college student at the University of California, Berkeley, by selling imported Japanese arcade games and installing them around campus. He also earned $1 million off a pocket translator he invented and sold to Sharp before returning home to Japan to found Softbank in 1981.

Still, all of these tycoons made their money the old fashioned way--hard work, determination, ingenuity and a little bit of luck. In honor of these achievements, we've gathered together the list of Asia's 20 richest self-made, including such business icons as Stanley Ho, nicknamed the King of Macau, and Terry Gou, whose Hon Hai Precision is the world's biggest contract manufacturer.

Net worths reflect most recently published Forbes magazine figures. March billionaire figures were used for Hong Kong and Taiwan. Regional rich list valuations were used for the other fortunes.

Although these 20 have diverse interests in industries ranging from plastics to telecommunications, property seems to be the most lucrative industry for the self-starters. Seven entrepreneurs made all or part of their fortunes in real estate, more than any other industry. Ramesh Chandra started as an engineer and is now one of India's leading real estate developers. Hui Wing Mau's Shimao Group has plans to develop 17 luxury hotels in China in the next three years.

Ng Teng Fong started with one small project in Singapore and has since developed hundreds of homes, malls and hotels. Being from India or Hong Kong was another trait many shared, with 11 of the top 20 hailing from one of these two countries.

Not surprisingly, many of these self-made tycoons are now enjoying their hard-earned money. Though Y.C. Wang has been known to sport a simple Seiko watch and Ng Teng Fong sometimes brings his own lunch on airplanes, widower Gou has reportedly dropped thousands at Armani, and pals Lee Shau Kee and Cheng Yu-Tung like to play golf at ritzy country clubs together. Which proves that expensive taste isn't an inherited trait.