Having US$40.8 Billion
India’s Ambani family came in first on the Forbes list of Asia’s richest families this year, steeping down Korea’s Lee Kun-hee family (Samsung family) to the second place from the top position last year. The annual list consists of families continuing to do business for at least three generations.
The Ambani family is the owner of the Reliance Group, whose scope of business includes oil refining, chemical, finance and telecom. The family’s assets totaled US$44.8 billion as of November 3.
South Korea’s Lee Kun-hee family came in second with US$40.8 billion. The owners of the Samsung Group ranked first in 2016 as well as 2015, when the list was released for the first time. Hong Kong’s Kwok family, which controls Sun Hung Kai Properties, came in third with US$40.4 billion.
The list includes 18 Indian families, nine Hong Kong, five Singaporean, four South Korean and four Indonesian. The other South Korean families are Hyundai’s Chung family (US$14.8 billion, 17th), LG’s Koo family (US$8.7 billion, 28th), and SK’s Choi family (US$6.3 billion, 39th).
Forbes explained that almost half of Asia’s richest families are Chinese but they were not included in the list as most of those Chinese families’ enterprises are currently run by first-generation and second-generation family members.