SINGAPORE: Goh Cheng Liang, founder of Wuthelam Group and Singapore’s richest person, died today at the age of 98, his family said, according to a report published in The Straits Times today.
According to Forbes’ 2025 ranking of the world’s billionaires, Goh topped the list for Singapore with an estimated net worth of US$13 billion (RM55 billion).
He held a majority stake in Japan’s Nippon Paint Holdings, which he helped build into a global coatings powerhouse.
Born in 1927, he grew up in a rented shophouse room in River Valley and was sent to Johor during World War II, where he helped sell fishing nets.
In 1949, he bought surplus paint from a British army auction and began making his own Pigeon Brand paints using a Chinese dictionary to decipher chemical names.
His business boomed during the Korean War when imports were restricted.
He later became Nippon Paint’s distributor in Singapore and founded Wuthelam Holdings in 1974, building it into a multinational company with nearly 60 per cent of Nippon Paint.
Goh’s other ventures included developing and later selling the former Liang Court mall and Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
Known for avoiding publicity, he told The Business Times in 1997 that he preferred private companies to public ones.
Through the Goh Foundation, he funded cancer research, treatment facilities and scholarships, and supported welfare agencies in Singapore as well as roads, schools and sanitation systems in Chaozhou, China.
A cancer survivor himself, he also backed the Goh Cheng Liang Proton Therapy Centre at the National Cancer Centre Singapore.
He is survived by three children, eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
