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19 Nov 2024
LEE THIAM WAH, who began his entrepreneurial journey selling snacks from a roadside stall in Malaysia, has now built a vast retail empire with over 2,600 convenience stores nationwide. At the age of 60, he has become a billionaire following the public listing of his company, 99 Speed Mart Retail Holdings, in Kuala Lumpur.
The company’s initial public offering (IPO) raised $531 million, marking Malaysia’s biggest IPO in seven years. Priced at 1.65 ringgit ($0.38) per share, Lee’s net worth has surged to around $3.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The IPO strengthens Kuala Lumpur’s position as the most active market for new listings in Southeast Asia this year, reflecting strong investor confidence in Malaysia’s economic growth, which is expected to expand by up to 5% this year. The company’s shares are seen as a key opportunity for investors to tap into the consumer sector. Mohit Mirpuri, a senior partner and fund manager at SGMC Capital in Singapore, emphasized that this IPO comes at a pivotal time for both Malaysia's IPO landscape and the broader Southeast Asian capital markets, potentially enhancing Malaysia's role in regional listings.
Lee was born in 1964 in Klang, a city located between Kuala Lumpur and the Malacca Strait. Raised in a large family with 11 children, his parents—a construction worker and a hawker—could only afford to send him to school for six years. Lee's early business journey began out of necessity after he contracted polio as a child and lost the use of his legs permanently. "Due to my physical limitation, nobody would hire me," he told Forbes in 2012. "I had to help myself."
Lee opened his first grocery store in 1987 and, by 1997, was operating eight stores under the brand Pasar Mini 99. His wife, Ng Lee Tieng, started her career as a purchasing executive in the same year. Until recently, the couple were the sole owners of the company. Today, 99 Speed Mart is the largest chain of its kind in Malaysia, holding a 40% share of the mini-market segment and nearly 12% of the overall grocery retail market, as outlined in the IPO prospectus.
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