Forrest Li has seen his wealth nearly halve to about $11 billion over the past few months.
Forrest Li, the chairman and CEO of Singapore’s Sea Ltd. (SE) – Get Sea Ltd. (Singapore) Report, has seen his wealth drop by an astounding $11 billion since American depositary receipts of his company reached their zenith on Oct. 19.
Li became Singapore’s richest person in 2021 on the back of a surge in demand for gaming and online shopping during the Covid-19 pandemic.
His wealth ballooned to more than $20 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index amid the rise in Sea’s stock price. Li’s wealth now sits at about $11 billion, falling about $2.33 billion year to date.
Earlier this week, Tencent said that it is cutting its stake in Sea to 18.7% from 21.3%. The stock is down nearly 25% over the past month.
Tencent’s sale followed an announcement from Sea saying that it will increase the voting power of its Class B shares and that Tencent would convert all of its Class B stock into Class A shares.
That move, which is still subject to a shareholder vote in February, would make Li the beneficial owner of all outstanding Class B securities and increase his voting power to about 57% from 54%, according to Bloomberg.
Sea became Southeast Asia’s most valuable company as its e-commerce platform Shopee and mobile game Free Fire exploded in popularity during the pandemic with more than 1 billion downloads on Google Play.
