HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mr ROBERT KUOK!  Today you join the less than one million people in the world who have reached such a milestone of being 100 years old!

The years have gone by so fast. It was in 1949 that Kuok Brothers Limited was formed. You didn't know then that it would flourish to become the giant Kuok conglomerate that it is today or that you would be the richest businessman in Malaysia. 

Your succession plan has been put in place. Your daughter, Kuok Hui Kwong, is Chairman of Shangri-la Asia Limited, which has under its portfolio the Shangri-La Hotels, Kerry Hotels, JEN by Shangri-La and Traders Hotels across the Asia Pacific, Europe and Africa. 

Your youngest son, Kuok Khoon Hua, whom you have personally mentored for a long time is Chairman and CEO of Kerry Properties Limited, a world class property company with significant investments in Mainland China and Hong Kong. He also sits on the Board of Wilmar International Limited, Asia's leading agribusiness group in which PPB Group is a significant shareholder, and New York listed SEA Limited, a global consumer internet company which owns Shopee. 

The internet related investments, including the Kuok Group GXS Bank consortium that was awarded a digital bank licence by Bank Negara Malaysia, would be unfamiliar to you but you have handed the reins of what you have successfully built up in the past decades to the new generation. It is now up to them to carve their own future. 

The world has changed so much Mr Kuok. As you said in your book, A Memoir with Andrew Tanzer, "If today's technology and speed of information had existed in the 1960s and 1970s, I would have been like a fish out of water." But London sugar traders called you the Sugar King in your time and you were a brilliant trader. In your own words, "I took to commodities trading like a young duckling takes to water." 

Mr Kuok, you are an inspiration to the Malaysian Chinese community for your business acumen, your benevolence, your integrity, your filial piety to your mother which has left such a deep impression upon us, your wit and your candour. 

We all wish you a very Happy 100th Birthday!