Billionaires selling cheap stuff get richer from inflation pain
NOT everyone is a loser when it comes to inflation.
Owners of budget stores in Asia have amassed billions of US dollars in wealth as customers looking for bargains have flocked to their stores. Sales are rising and their businesses are expanding to meet growing demand from consumers, unlike in places such as the US.
In India, Radhakishan Damani’s US$22 billion fortune is now one of the biggest in the industry. In Japan, Trial Holdings’s listing last month – the country’s largest of the year – made its founder a billionaire. In China, the wealth of Miniso Group Holding’s Ye Guofu has quadrupled since a low in 2022.
And then there’s South Korea, where a little-known family has been creeping up into the ranks of the mega-rich.
Asung Daiso, which Park Jung-boo founded more than three decades ago, has grown into one of the country’s top sellers of cheap stuff, with more than 1,500 stores. Park and his family in December bought back a stake they had sold years ago, putting the company’s value at about US$1.1 billion and giving the clan a fortune of more than US$700 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing the Parks for the first time.