Bi-weekly report on billionaires: South Korean ‘Steve Jobs’ charts unlikely path

Our biweekly look at the world of billionaires includes gaming magnate Bang Jun-hyuk, Fortesque Metals founder Andrew Forrest, who used rights afforded to aboriginals to keep prospectors off his farms, and the French businessman who contributed to the downfall of Francois Fillon.

Bang Jun-hyuk. Reed Saxon / AP Photo

Bang Jun-hyuk

The man behind South Korea’s biggest initial public offering in seven years has charted an unlikely path in a country dominated by family-run conglomerates.

A high school dropout born in a textile factory slum, Bang Jun-hyuk has used a hard-charging attitude to grow Netmarble Games into a major. Its shares debuted on May 12.

Mr Bang bet early on the power of smartphones to drive gaming content, building the company he founded in 2000 with just eight employees into the publisher of Lineage 2 Revolution and Marvel Future Fight. Along the way, Netmarble has won backing from Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which invested US$500 million in 2014.

Mr Bang, who at age 48 has a net worth of about $3 billion, has been compared to Steve Jobs for the way he returned to the company and ignited growth after years away resulted in losses.

Netmarble struggled while he was gone, with its games failing to attract users and losses reaching into the tens of millions of dollars. Bang returned in 2011 and focused it on the boom in smartphones.

While the Jobs comparison is flattering, other nicknames haven’t been so kind, with some local media dubbing him “torturer” for driving employees hard. For years, software developers have called its building in the Guro district a “lighthouse” because its office stayed lit well after neighbours have gone to bed. But the 24/7 culture is a reflection of the founder, who has highlighted that hard work is what a man without ties to the rich, politically powerful, or a prestigious school has to do to make a splash in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Dmitry Rybolovlev

The Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the French football club Monaco in 2011 when they were bottom of Ligue 2.

On Wednesday night, though, they secured the Ligue 1 title for the first time in 17 years, with a 2-0 defeat of St Etienne in which their teenage star Kylian Mbappe scored the opener.

Mr Rybolovlev, the son of doctors, came of age as the Soviet Union was in an era of transition under Mikhail Gorbachev. He leapt into its nascent business world and, in 1994, opened a bank. The mainstay of his fortune, though, came through his gradual takeover of the potash company Uralkali, which he built into a global player. In 2010 he sold a 53 per cent stake in the company to a group of Russian investors for a price believed to be around $5.3bn. A year later he snapped up a majority share in the Monaco football club, with the Monaco royal family remaining on board with a 33 per cent stake.

Mr Rybolovlev was imprisoned for 11 months in 1996 and 1997 for arranging the murder of a business ally, but was later cleared by the Russian courts. Now he is a philanthropist with $7.3bn.

Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere

The French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere has been charged over a fake jobs scandal that weakened the rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon in January, a report said on May 14.

Mr Ladreit de Lacharriere employed Mr Fillon's wife Penelope at his magazine La Revue des Deux Mondes from May 2012 to December 2013 with a pre-tax salary of €5,000 (Dh20,589) a month.

Besides his publishing interests, Mr Ladreit de Lacharriere owns a 20 per cent stake in the ratings company Fitch. Forbes estimates the Frenchman’s net worth at $3bn.

The businessman, a close friend of Mr Fillon, was summoned by three investigating judges on the evening of May 12 and charged with misuse of corporate assets, the Journal du Dimanche newspaper said.

Mr Fillon and his British-born wife have been charged after revelations in the newspaper Le Canard Enchaine in January that his wife had been employed as a parliamentary assistant for 15 years. She is suspected by investigators of having done little or no work for her salary that totalled hundreds of thousands of euros.

Francois Pinault

Hundreds of the very rich have been gathering in northern Italy for the Venice Biennale, which runs from May 13 through November 26.

Satellite exhibitions will also be sponsored by philanthropies and museums, and in the case of the Punta Della Dogana, by the billionaire Francois Pinault. Mr Pinault's art collection is worth an estimated €1.2bn. Last year, he reached a deal to house his collection, which includes works by Mark Rothko and Damien Hirst, in a new museum in the former Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The new museum is to open in 2018. ArtReview last year ranked Mr Pinault as the 35th most powerful person in the global art market.

Mr Pinault, who besides collecting art is the owner of the auction house Christie’s, as well as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, has a net worth estimated at €19.9bn.

Andrew Forrest

The mining magnate Andrew Forrest has used laws designed to protect indigenous land rights to stop prospectors searching for minerals on his West Australian cattle farms, angering traditional Aboriginal landowners and mining community members.

Mr Forrest’s approach represents one of the first known examples of a non-Aboriginal successfully using rights afforded to indigenous people to their own advantage.

Native title is a legal doctrine in Australia that recognises indigenous rights to certain parcels of land.

Mr Forrest’s use of it is not illegal, but it adds to the fractious relationship he has with some indigenous groups. Different groups have raised concerns over his cattle interests and have battled over land rights with the company he founded and chairs - Fortescue Metals Group, the world’s fourth biggest iron ore miner.

A spokeswoman for Mr Forrest said the issue was about complying with mining regulations. “It is neither a matter of using native title law nor objecting to prospecting.”

She said there was support for Mr Forrest’s position within the Thalanyji people who hold native title under some of his cattle stations. The farms operated with the utmost respect for the environment, she added.

But Matthew Slack, the head of the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corp, which oversees native title for the indigenous landowners, said it was “pretty rich” for Mr Forrest to use rights designed to protect indigenous interests.

Mr Forrest’s net worth is estimated at $3.9bn.

Warren Buffett

This is your pilot speaking: Warren Buffett, who is a major shareholder in several US airlines including United, says that airplanes “may become like cattle cars” – but that is because a significant number of passengers will put up with crowding in exchange for cheaper fares.

In an interview with CNBC, he also said that United Airlines bungled the case of the passenger dragged off a plane last month.

Mr Buffett said the recent spotlight on poor customer service in the airline industry doesn’t change his investment strategy.

According to FactSet, Berkshire Hathaway is United’s largest shareholder with a more than 9 per cent stake. Berkshire is also the top shareholder at Delta, No. 2 at Southwest and No. 3 at American.

Mr Buffett said air travel has become “unbelievably safe” and that full planes are making the airlines profitable – even if that causes “a fair amount of discomfort”.

“They may become like cattle cars, but … a significant percentage would rather be treated that way and fly for $X than have far more legroom, two abreast, all kinds of things and travel for $X plus 25 per cent,” he said.

Uday Kotak

Kotak Mahindra Bank, controlled by Indian billionaire Uday Kotak, said on May 11 that it plans to raise as much as $901m by selling shares to institutions to help boost lending in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

The Mumbai-based bank is offering as many as 62 million shares for 930 rupees (Dh52.9) to 936 rupees apiece. Bank of America, Kotak Mahindra Capital and Morgan Stanley are arranging the sale.

The proceeds from India’s second-biggest share sale this year may help Kotak Mahindra win more clients as state lenders struggle with stressed assets. The country’s banking industry is one of the most fragmented, with about 48 lenders owning national networks that compete for $1.6 trillion of deposits.

The sale will also help Mr Kotak comply with an Indian central bank directive earlier this year to cut his ownership in the lender to 30 per cent by the end of June. Mr Kotak, who started the bank in 2003, must trim the stake further, to 20 per cent, by the end of 2018, and to 15 per cent by March 2020.

Mr Kotak’s net worth is $9.7bn, according to Bloomberg.

* Agencies and The National

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