Forrest Li was listed as the richest person in Singapore on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of S$26.6 billion in September last year.
Following a harrowing year for many in the tech industry, Li’s fortune has plummeted to a little over S$4 billion.
Forrest Li is the co-founder of Sea Ltd., which until recently was perceived to be the most valuable technology company in Southeast Asia, with e-commerce, online gaming, and digital payment businesses.
The global consumer internet company once had 33,000 employees and is a holding company for Shopee, SeaMoney, and Garena, as well as the football club Lion City Sailors FC.
But 2022 has been a different story for Li.
By May of this year, he had already lost 80 per cent of his fortune due to a market crash that caused the world’s 500 richest people to lose over $US1 trillion (S$1.4 trillion) this year.
However, according to a Nov 14 Bloomberg article, Forrest Li had still been optimistic that his company’s challenges would be overcome quickly and had banked on its internal strengths.
But the realities of rising inflation and the slowing down of economies, as well as greater competition, have meant prolonged hardships for Sea Ltd.
The company already reduced its workforce and closed operations in a number of markets in Europe and Latin America.
And while Forrest Li himself has seen his personal net worth plunge, he is not the only one at Sea Ltd experiencing this.
At the company’s height, Gang Ye, and David Chen, Sea Ltd’s two other founders, were worth S$14.5 billion and S$4.8 billion respectively.
Today, the net worth of chief operating officer Ye has fallen to S$2.7 billion, and Chen is no longer a billionaire.
In a 1000-word memo from September listing the cost-cutting measures the company would make, Forrest Li wrote that in addition to limiting business travel expenses, neither he nor top-level management would be receiving their salaries until the company’s financial situation improves.
Sea Ltd’s third-quarter loss is expected to be S$622 million due to post-pandemic gaming demand waning and Shopee’s reduced reach, Bloomberg added, and some investors have jumped ship.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Naidu is quoted as saying, “Investors are potentially starting to look at Sea as less of a growth stock.
There’s a lot more pressure on Sea to achieve profits.”
Diving Deeper: Forrest Li‘s Assets and Singapore’s Wealth Landscape
Amidst the turbulence of the tech industry, one might wonder how personal assets like Forrest Li’s house and other investments have fared. Positioned in one of Singapore’s upscale locales, Li’s residence echoes the elite echelons of the country’s wealthy, shedding light on the standards and benchmarks of Singapore net worth.
Comparatively, at the pinnacle of his success, Forrest Li’s net worth stood as a beacon, greatly influencing the parameters of affluence in Singapore. However, like many before him, global market fluctuations play no favorites, making even the mightiest susceptible to unforeseen downturns./TISG
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With S$26.6 billion net worth, Shopee’s Forrest Li is now Singapore’s wealthiest man