Thailand’s Chearavanont family, which controls the Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group), rose to second place with US$27.7 billion in wealth, moving up from fourth place and $19.9 billion last year.
CP Group led by billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont operates various businesses ranging from poultry, telecom and retail under the 7-Eleven convenience chain in Thailand.
Third-richest are the Ambanis of India’s Reliance Group with a combined net worth of $25.8 billion, followed by the Kwok family of Hong Kong with $25.2 billion, Asia’s richest real estate family. The Lee family from Hong Kong ranks fifth with $24.7 billion.
The Chirathivat family, which owns giant retail businesses in Thailand under the Central Group, retains the 14th spot with $13.8 billion. Its combined wealth grew from $11.7 billion last year.
Headed by chief executive Tos Chirathivat, Central Group just restructured its organisation by recruiting professionals to run the group’s operations, including property, trading, food and online, which have combined sales revenue of about 320 billion baht this year.
Slipping from this year’s list is the Ratanarak family, a Thai clan that controls Bangkok Broadcasting’s Channel 7 and ranked 45th with $3.5 billion in net worth last year.
The reports notes that Indian families stood out on the 2016 Forbes list of Asia’s richest families, with 17 of the top 50 families hailing from India.
Many of these Asian families’ conglomerates have worldwide footprints. Collectively, the top 50 families are worth US$519 billion.
“Sources of Asian wealth are broadening. You can see that among the rich families here, and even within many of the families — no particular sectors of the economy dominate,” said Tim Ferguson, editor of Forbes Asia.
The minimum net wealth to qualify for the list was $3.4 billion, up from $2.9 billion a year ago.