The Tycoons

Abstract

Despite the media publicity, which they sometimes seek and sometimes cannot avoid, the diaspora tycoons, like icebergs, often display less than they conceal. Listed companies publish accounts and reports and journalists retail the public pronouncements of their officeholders, but the workings of the secretive private companies and of the personal relationships that are behind the public face can often only be guessed at. In this chapter we will, nonetheless, try to piece together what publicly available information we could find about the biggest operators in the region, to see how far they are active across national borders, especially into China, and what role in this is played by networks and transnational linkages.