22 DATUK LIM KUANG SIA

Flagship: Kossan Holdings Net worth: RM2.663bil LAST year was a good one for rubber glove manufacturers on robust demand growth and lower pricing competition.

Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd benefited from the improved sentiment with its share price rising 26% to close at RM8.11 as at end2017, with a market capitalisation of RM5.186bil.

And Kossan managing director and executive officer Datuk Lim Kuang Sia became the 22nd richest man in Malaysia in 2017, with a net worth of RM2.663bil, based on his and his family’s shareholding in the company.

In 2016, Kuang Sia was ranked as the 25th richest person in the country with a net worth of RM2bil.

Kuang Sia, 66, founded Kossan in 1979.

He and his family members – Lim Kuang Wang, Lim Kuang Yong, Lim Kwan Hwa and Lim Leng Bung – are major shareholders of the group through Kossan Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, which has a 51.1% stake in Kossan. On top of that, Kuang Sia and his family also have a direct 0.3% share in Kossan.

Kossan is one of Malaysia’s topfour manufacturers that control the world market for gloves. Its products are sold in over 160 coun- tries, and virtually every hospital or medical clinic in the world would have used the company’s products.

It is the world’s second-largest manufacturer of disposable latex gloves.

The group churns out more than 22 billion pairs of disposable gloves every year. Its product mix is 70% nitrile and 30% natural rubber gloves.

Kossan is expected to add two new plants in 2018, with a total capacity of 4.5 billion gloves per annum. The first new plant is slated for completion by the first quarter of 2018 and the second plant will begin operations in the third quarter of 2018.