Goh Cheng Liang is a reclusive billionaire who founded the Nippon Paint South-East Asia Group, one of the largest paint manufacturers in Asia. It’s hard to even find a photo of Goh, but we do know a few things, thanks to the Straits Times.
Goh was born into poverty in 1928, living in a $3-a-month rented room with his six other family members. He sold fishing nets during World War II, and then, in 1949, he bought barrels of bad paint leftover from the British army. When the Korean War started that following year, import restrictions worked in his favor, and his paint business gained momentum.
He is said to have several yachts and catamarans. In a rare interview with the Business Times from 1997, as quoted in the Straits Times, he said this amusing bit: “I don’t like cinemas, I don’t like movies, I don’t like songs, I don’t like karaoke, I don’t like bars. When I was young, I was quite naughty about girls but not so in the last 20 years.”
