More on Robert Kuok
The long march out of Asia
Legendary Malaysian-Chinese tycoon Robert Kuok keeps a low profile when it comes to press interviews. Malaysian TV scooped one in 1994 but it was two years before it was broadcast and subsequent requests have been brushed aside. Kuok's handlers believe there is nothing wrong with keeping their 73-year-old boss under wraps. They point out that he built his empire through vision, tenacity, risk-taking and guanxi the connections that ease business transactions. A high public profile is neither necessary nor desirable. "Mystique helps," says Joanne Watkins, one of his chief PR aides. "It creates great curiosity about him."
What did come over in the TV interview was Kuok's aversion to pompous or romantic descriptions of his business career. Asked reverently about his "sense of mission" as a great entrepreneur, he bluntly replied that "the most important thing was to make money". And...
