Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan has died at the age of 86

KUALA LUMPUR – Ananda Krishnan, the elusive billionaire who rose from an oil trader to one of Malaysia’s most prolific dealers and financed the 1985 Live Aid concert, has died. He was 86 years old.

Ananda’s investment holding company announced his death in a statement, saying he made “significant contributions to nation building and the corporate world” and his philanthropic work “touched the lives of many.”

According to reports, he died peacefully on November 28.

Over a decades-long career that ran parallel to Malaysia’s economic growth, Ananda gained a reputation as a shrewd, Harvard-educated businessman whose fingerprints were everywhere but who rarely appeared in person.

After successfully entering the oil market, he moved into entertainment, power, gambling and more, amassing a fortune estimated at $3.8 billion (S$5.11 billion) as of August 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

At the heart of his success was his long friendship with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003 and 2018 to 2020.

The two men joined forces in London in the 1970s.

While Dr Mahathir was in power, Ananda obtained numerous telecommunications, satellite and broadcasting licenses.

He received a proposal to transform the racetrack in downtown Kuala Lumpur into a huge city within a city, topped by the Petronas Towers – the tallest twin buildings in the world.

He recognized public companies as private companies and vice versa. Most importantly, in 2007 he organized the buyout of the telecommunications company Maxis Bhd, and two years later he listed it again on the stock exchange.

Years later, his empire was destroyed after a major bet in India’s mobile phone market collapsed amid fierce competition and a regulatory investigation into alleged corruption in telephone licensing. Cumulative losses: approximately $7 billion.

Throughout his ups and downs, with billions in winnings and losses, Mr. Ananda protected his privacy and rarely gave interviews.

“I heard some people say I’m not very popular,” he once told a journalist. “Why would anyone be loud at all? I’m just doing my job. If you say I have a low profile, then by definition that means I should be tall. But why?”