SINGAPORE – The seventh-richest person in Malaysia, Mr Chen Lip Keong, died at the age of 76 on Dec 8 from illness, Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp announced on Dec 11.

Mr Chen was the founder and senior chief executive officer of NagaCorp – the largest gaming entertainment company in Cambodia’s Mekong region.

He was also the executive president of Bursa Malaysia-listed mattress company FACB Industries, as well as a controlling shareholder of Malaysia-based resort and hospitality company Karambunai and property development company Petaling Tin.

Following his death, NagaCorp announced the redesignation of 42-year-old executive director Chen Yiy Fon – one of Mr Chen’s sons – as the new group CEO, effective from Dec 10.

Mr Chen Yiy Fon, who has previously served as the CEO of operations since April 2022, will assume all the duties and responsibilities previously held by his father.

The younger Mr Chen, who graduated with an economics degree from the University of Southern California in the US, is also the chairman of FACB. He was a director at both Malaysia-based Karambunai Corp and Petaling Tin.

In a statement on Dec 11, NagaCorp said the late Mr Chen had established a solid foundation for the group with over 28 years of steady growth.

“His entrepreneurial, business and managerial experiences had been instrumental to the group’s success,” it said.

“The company will continue the group’s business operations by adhering to the business strategies laid down by the board. The board is of the view that the passing away of Chen will not have any material impact on the operations of the group,” NagaCorp said.

According to Forbes’ top 50 richest people in Malaysia for 2023, Mr Chen was seventh on the list with a net worth of US$2.8 billion (S$3.8 billion) as at the end of May this year.

Born in 1948 in Kuala Lumpur, he graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Malaya but pursued a career in business in the early 1990s. He established NagaCorp in 1995 after securing the first casino licence from the Cambodian government a year earlier.

NagaCorp now operates the first and only integrated resort in Cambodia, called NagaWorld in Phnom Penh. NagaWorld has a licence to operate until 2065 and has a guaranteed monopoly within a 200km radius of the Cambodian capital until 2045.

NagaWorld’s development spans across a land area of 113,307 sq m, boasting 1,658 hotel rooms and suites, as well as retail and entertainment facilities.

Its latest development phase, Naga3, which is slated to be completed by 2029, is expected to add another 5,000 hotel rooms, 1,300 gaming tables and 4,500 electronic gaming machines to the largest casino resort in all of Indochina.

Mr Chen began succession plans for his business by appointing three of his sons as joint CEOs in the company in 2022. Besides Mr Chen Yiy Fon, his eldest son, Mr Chen Yiy Hwuan was appointed as the CEO of hotels, while Mr Chen Cherchi was appointed as the CEO of finance and treasury.

In July 2022, Mr Chen announced a transfer of his shares in NagaCorp – whether held directly or indirectly – to a family trust that he established as part of the succession plan.

Outside Cambodia, Mr Chen was mulling an expansion plan to Russia to replicate the success of NagaWorld by developing an integrated casino resort in the country in 2017. The plan, however, was suspended in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Prior to its overseas expansion plan in Russia, NagaCorp was keen to list its Cambodian assets on the Singapore Exchange back in 2003.

That initial public offering application was rejected twice by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which said NagaWorld did not have an established track record of independent audits for addressing money-laundering risks. THE BUSINESS TIMES