Singapore Paints Billionaire Goh Cheng Liang Dies At 98

Goh Cheng Liang, founder of Wuthelam, controlling shareholder of Tokyo-listed Nippon Paint Holdings.

Courtesy of Goh family

Goh Cheng Liang—the founder of Wuthelam Group, the controlling shareholder of Japan’s Nippon Paint Holdings—passed away peacefully on Tuesday morning at age 98, according to a statement from his family.

“My father was a beacon of kindness and strength,” Goh Hup Jin, his eldest son and chairman of Nippon Paint, said in the statement. “We are very fortunate to have had him show us how to be a good person. He taught us to live life with compassion and humility.”

The patriarch’s entrepreneurial journey, which led him to amass a substantial fortune, was a remarkable one. The self-made billionaire grew up in humble circumstances, living in a shophouse on River Valley Road with his parents and four siblings. At the time of his death his real-time net worth was just over $13 billion, the bulk of which was derived from a controlling stake in Japan’s Nippon Paint, according to Forbes’ estimates.

The one-time fishnet seller and rubber tapper stumbled into the paints business after World War II, buying cheap paint from the British army that he turned into a local brand called Pigeon. In 1962, he jumped at the opportunity to partner with Nippon Paint, then looking to expand into Southeast Asia.

Over nearly six decades, he expanded the business in the region and went on to acquire a stake in Nippon Paint, currently the world’s fourth-largest paints company by sales. In 2021, his son Hup Jin led the family’s Wuthelam group in cementing a $12 billion stock-and-cash deal that gave their privately held holding company control of Nippon Paint. The deal involved Wuthelam raising its stake in the Tokyo-listed company to close to 60% from 40%; in return, Nippon Paint bought out their Asian joint ventures, including Wuthelam’s Indonesian business for $2 billion.

Besides scaling up his paints business, Goh had ventured into real estate and healthcare during his lifetime. He developed the former Liang Court mixed-use complex at Clark Quay and the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in the Orchard Road shopping precinct. Both properties have since been sold.

Through the Goh Foundation, which he established in 1995, the businessman contributed to initiatives such as the establishment of Singapore’s National Cancer Center. The facility was subsequently expanded to include the Goh Cheng Liang Proton Therapy Centre, to provide patients advanced radiation treatment.