Richard Chandler’s fortune has shot back up on the back of rising oil prices and currency movements.
The Singapore-based expatriate Kiwi was recently ranked Singapore’s 12th richest man, according to Forbes, and he’s now turning his attention to philanthropy.
Chandler is among the initial partners of Co-Impact, a self-described “global collaborative for systems change,” bringing together philanthropists, social change leaders, governments, non-profits and the private sector.
Other core partners include Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Skoll, Kathy Wadhwani and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Co-Impact says it will invest $US500 million in three critical areas – health, education and economic opportunity – to improve the lives of underserved populations across the developing world.
Meanwhile, Chandler’s private investment firm, Clermont Group, continues to look for opportunities.
Late last year it made a $24 million investment in Delhi-based Indiabulls Pharmaceutical to acquire about 9% of the company.
Clermont builds and invests in businesses in healthcare, financial services and energy, concentrating on high-risk investments in emerging markets.
One of three brothers who were raised in Matangi near Hamilton, Richard Chandler is a man of privacy, having given only one interview to media.
Clearmont draws on more than a century of Chandler family business experience. Chicago-born Edward Chandler founded Chandler & Co, an advertising firm, in Auckland, New Zealand in 1903. His son Robert and his wife Marija opened Chandler House, a department store in Hamilton, New Zealand in 1973. In 1982 two sons, Richard and Christopher, joined the business. The company grew to include a department store in Auckland and a chain of fashion stores.
Between them, Richard and Christopher Chandler turned the $10 million of family assets into several billion dollars by investing in Hong Kong real estate, Japanese banks, a South Korean oil conglomerate, and by jumping on the privatisation bandwagon in Russia.
After spending several years in Monaco, they went their separate ways in 2006, with Christopher moving to Dubai and Richard to Singapore.
Investments linked to the firm popped up in the Panama Papers but, as usual, Chandler declined to comment.