Taiwan Billionaire Rudy Ma, Founder Of Yuanta Financial Holdings, Dies At 82

Rudy Ma, the founder of financial services company Yuanta Financial Holdings, died Tuesday evening at age 82.

Ma, who had been battling Alzheimer’s for some years, was ranked No. 15 on the list of Taiwan’s 50 Richest 2022 with a net worth of $3.3 billion. His younger son Wei Chen sits on the board of the group as well as subsidiaries Yuanta Bank and Yuanta Life; elder son Wei Chien is a director of Yuanta Life and Yuanta Securities. Ma’s daughter Wei Hsin chairs HannsTouch, a Taiwanese maker of touch sensor products outside the family business.

Ma was born in 1940 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business from the National Taiwan University in 1966. He helped run his family’s building materials shop and then worked with a steel firm and a glass manufacturer. In 1986, Ma took over the predecessor of Yuanta Securities, which his father procured in 1974, and expanded the business through a series of acquisitions to create Yuanta Financial Holdings in 2007.

Today, Yuanta has grown into a comprehensive financial group with a market cap of $7.6 billion. Its operations span securities, banking, insurance and other financial services. The Ma family also holds one of Taiwan’s top art collections.