Liu Fangyi made his fortune with disposable gloves
Liu Fangyi (51), alias Frank Liu, appears as a mouth cap billionaire for the first time on the Forbes-list of ultra-rich. He owes this to the sale of mouth caps, hand gel and the medical device that started his career: disposable gloves.
Born in the port city of Shanghai, Liu set up his first disposable medical glove company during his studies in California in the late 1990s. Back in China he started a variety of companies under the name Intco in 2003. They are involved in recycling, in particular plastic and polystyrene foam, but from 2009 the production of disposable gloves takes over. Then it is a small step to mouth caps, disinfecting gel and wheelchairs.
Liu’s empire in medical supplies fits so well with government policy that in 2017 he was selected for the 10,000 Talent Program, through which China recruits top scientists worldwide with big subsidies. Liu is now good for 3.3 billion dollars (2.9 billion euros): the value of shares in Intco Medical Technology shot up by no less than 650 percent in 2020. As a charity, Liu regularly helps authorities in corona hotspots with wagonloads of gloves and masks.
Arvind Lal, Test Emperor of India
Covid-19 was a catastrophe for India, but not for test emperor Arvind Lal. The 72-year-old CEO and major shareholder of Dr Lal PathLabs, a medical diagnostics chain, became a billionaire thanks to the virus. Or rather, thanks to the Indian government’s decision in March 2020 to open up testing to private companies. Lal’s assets now amount to 2.3 billion dollars (2 billion euros).
Dr Lal PathLabs (with over two hundred laboratories across India) was founded in 1949 by Lal’s father, SK Lal. Lal junior studied medicine in Pune and joined the family business in 1977, which he modernized and expanded. His wife Vandana, also a doctor, leads R&D, his son and daughter focus on genetics and the veterinary department.
Arvind Lal is not only one of the richest but also one of the most successful tycoons in India. He experimented with public-private projects, is a supervisory director of numerous pharmaceutical companies and has received many high honors. The question is how much he attaches to it. In 2018 Lal published an autobiographical book, ‘Corporate Yoga‘, about his ‘life journey as a spiritual seeker and accidental entrepreneur’.’
Abdulsamad Rabiu, the second richest man in Nigeria
The new year started well for the Nigerian billionaire Abdulsamad Rabiu (61): with the IPO of his BUA Foods he raised 1.6 billion euros in one day. His net worth is estimated at €6.3 billion, making him the second richest man in Nigeria and sixth on the Forbes list of African super-rich.
Rabiu, the son of a wealthy industrialist from Kano, started importing steel, iron and chemicals in 1988 and soon expanded into the production of sugar, grain and cement. He bought sugar and grain mills, acquired Nigerian Oil Mills, Nigeria’s largest oil refinery, and took a stake in Nigeria’s largest cement factory.
Africa must be self-sufficient, is his sacred belief; with its own industry that can lift millions of citizens out of poverty. The pandemic did not hinder his ambition in the least. He signed a contract with a Chinese construction company for the construction of three new cement factories and with the Italian Fava he is working on plans for the construction of what will be the largest grain processing and pasta factory in Nigeria.
Jorge Moll Filho, the cardiologist turned billionaire with labs and hospitals
In Latin America, corona had disastrous consequences for almost all economies, but for the bank account of cardiologist Jorge Moll Filho (77), it was a blessing. Moll Filho is the founder of Rede D’Or, a chain of medical laboratories and thirty Brazilian hospitals where the doors were flattened in corona time.
In October, Moll Filho decided that his chain was ready for the stock exchange. Before the IPO, he and his family had a combined fortune of 3.5 billion euros. After the IPO, that was 15 billion. While images of the disastrous Brazilian corona pandemic spread around the world, Moll Filho became one of the richest men in the world: he is in 194th place on the worldwide Forbes list.
Incidentally, the same list shows that the super-wealthy throughout Latin America are prospering. Amid national economic recessions, the number of Latin American billionaires increased by 29 (to a total of 105) between March 2020 and March 2021. Their combined wealth grew during the same period by an amount roughly equivalent to Ecuador’s total economy.