At 35 years old, she became the youngest female billionaire.

Introduction

THECAPITAL

The “Most Alternative” Heir

This article is 4,235 words, about 6.1 minutes

Author | Lü Jingzhi Editor | Wuren

Source | #Rongzhong Finance and Economics

(ID: thecapital)

In 1949, a 22-year-old young man from Singapore bought a batch of leftover supplies left by the British army at a low price, mixed colors and solvents in a simple workshop, bottled them, and sold them under the “Pigeon” brand. No one knew what this can of paint would become.

Seventy-six years later, his granddaughter sits in an office in New York, researching gender violence, with over $3.4 billion in her name from a paint empire.

Recently, Forbes released the 2026 Global Billionaires List. April Goh, 35, with a net worth of about $4 billion, ranks tenth among Singapore’s wealthy, becoming the youngest female billionaire in Singapore. Also on the list are five other descendants of the Guo family— their grandfather Guo Fangfeng, the late Singaporean paint tycoon, who, before passing away, completed a groundbreaking inheritance arrangement: skipping the next generation, directly distributing core family assets to six grandchildren, each with over $1 billion in assets.

This is a story about how wealth is passed down and how each person receives it in their own way. Six heirs, six lifestyles: some do charity work in Bali, some pursue academia in New York, some engage in agricultural technology in the Netherlands, and some choose complete silence. Not a single one has stepped forward to say they will take over the business. The true helmsman remains the second-generation Guo Heshen, who is over seventy.

Money has been passed down. The story is not over.

**********Scholars turn into billionaires,

$3.4 billion falls from the sky

A few days ago, Singapore welcomed a wave of “wealthy family clans.”

April Goh, 35, with a net worth of about $4 billion, ranks tenth on Singapore’s rich list, making her the youngest female among this group of heirs, and the youngest billionaire in Singapore’s billionaire community.

But if it weren’t for this list, most people wouldn’t know who she is.

April Goh’s current identity is a researcher at Columbia University’s China Social Policy Research Center, focusing on gender violence, based in New York. Her father, Guo Chuanjin, is a retired part-time mathematics professor at an Australian university. Their family’s daily coordinates are in academia, not business.

The wealth’s arrival stems from a groundbreaking inheritance arrangement that broke Asian tradition.

Last year, Guo Fangfeng passed away at the age of 98 in Singapore, leaving behind a paint empire valued at over $10 billion. According to disclosed documents, as early as December 2024, the family investment company Wuthelam Holdings transferred its 55% stake in Nippon Paint Holdings directly to Guo Fangfeng’s six grandchildren, skipping the next generation. This is extremely rare in Asian family inheritance history.

Among the six grandchildren, April Goh received the largest share, holding 37.5% of Nipsea International, worth about $3.4 billion, approximately 24.7 billion RMB, with a total net worth of about $4 billion, ranking 1,074th globally. It’s worth noting that a high shareholding does not necessarily mean greater influence. In Nipsea International’s voting structure, April holds 3.41% of the voting rights, the highest among the six grandchildren, but Guo Fangfeng’s eldest son and current head, Guo Hup Jin, holds 90.91% of the voting rights alone.

This structure reflects the deeper logic behind Guo Fangfeng’s inheritance plan: wealth is dispersed to the third generation to benefit the grandchildren, but operational control remains concentrated in the hands of the eldest son’s lineage, ensuring the family business’s operation remains stable despite wealth distribution. Ethan Chue, CEO of Family Succession Advisors, said that while Western families often pass assets to grandchildren, such an approach is rare in Asia, requiring a strong foundation of family trust and clear judgment of the heirs.

For April, this wealth arrival is almost unrelated to her original life trajectory.

She once worked in finance but later turned to academia, focusing on gender violence research. A scholar studying vulnerable groups in New York suddenly holding a stake in Asia’s largest paint empire is a contrast more compelling than any business story.

The Guo family has always been low-profile. Guo Fangfeng rarely appeared publicly during his lifetime, and after the inheritance news broke, family spokespeople explicitly refused all media interviews. Nippon Paint Holdings’ spokesperson also stated that the family does not accept media visits. April herself rarely makes high-profile social media posts, but on her Columbia University profile, there’s a sentence that perhaps reveals her inner world better: “There is an unsettling universality to violence against women, crossing regions, cultures, religions, and socioeconomic statuses. This reality shapes her approach to systemic change from the outside in.”

“From the outside in” is how she describes her research method. In this sense, her academic choice is an active stance—she did not choose to study finance or join the family business but instead focused on a topic almost unrelated to the wealth empire.

This sense of distance is not isolated among the third generation of the Guo family. A common trait among these heirs is that almost none see themselves as businessmen. They are involved in charity, academia, agricultural technology, philanthropy—each finds a way to keep a distance from money, while still accepting it.

Guo Fangfeng’s decision to pass wealth to his grandchildren perhaps reflects this: accepting wealth but not being defined by it.

**********From fishing nets to Nippon,

A can of paint supports a hundred-billion empire

The Guo family’s story is a nearly repeated yet ever-fresh example of rising from nothing in Singapore.

Born in 1927 into a poor family in Singapore, Guo Fangfeng’s early years were marked by hardship. During WWII, he and his family moved to Malaysia, where he helped his brother-in-law sell fishing nets, relying on physical strength and connections to survive. After the war, he returned to Singapore, tried to start a soda business—failed; then worked in a hardware store, learning the trade.

The real starting point was a batch of auctioned British military supplies.

In 1949, the British military stationed in Singapore withdrew, leaving a batch of surplus supplies for auction, including various paint raw materials. Guo Fangfeng bought them cheaply, mixed colors and solvents himself, produced a batch of paint, and sold it under the “Pigeon” brand. He was 22, with limited startup capital, and his factory was just a simple workshop.

Opportunity came faster than expected. In 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War led to strict restrictions on global imports and exports, and Singapore’s market faced a near-total supply halt of imported paint. Local demand suddenly surged, and Guo Fangfeng’s Pigeon paint filled this gap, with orders skyrocketing—his first major fortune was thus made. This experience is often cited, but few notice the underlying logic: he didn’t just get lucky; he prepared supply in advance during a period of material shortages.

Nippon (Nippon Paint) entered Guo Fangfeng’s view around 1955.

At that time, Nippon Paint from Japan was trying to expand into Southeast Asia, seeking local partners. Guo Fangfeng had already built a certain channel and customer base in Singapore, and the two quickly reached an agreement. In 1962, Guo Fangfeng and Nippon Paint officially co-founded Nipsea Group, with Guo’s family holding 60%, Nippon 40%. The joint-venture structure seemed equal, but Guo’s family controlled local operations—channels, customers, sales networks—entirely in their hands.

Over the following decades, Guo Fangfeng expanded Nipsea’s footprint across Asia-Pacific. The various joint ventures in Southeast Asia were almost all operated by Nipsea, including in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand… Nippon’s green stores opened everywhere, driven by Guo’s operational logic. In 1974, Guo Fangfeng established Wuthelam Holdings as the core family asset platform, managing not only paint but also real estate and other diversified investments.

The real leap in wealth happened in 2021.

That year, Wuthelam launched an unprecedented deal—investing about $12 billion to inject its entire stake in Nipsea International into Tokyo-listed Nippon Paint Holdings, acquiring a controlling stake. After the transaction, the Guo family effectively completed a reverse integration: from holding majority stakes in joint ventures to directly controlling the global paint giant listed in Tokyo. Nippon Paint became the largest in Asia-Pacific and the fourth-largest globally, and the Guo family’s wealth soared to a global level, with Guo Fangfeng’s net worth reaching $13 billion at one point.

But the market did not cooperate forever.

After 2021, Nippon Paint’s stock price declined steadily, and Guo Fangfeng’s net worth shrank accordingly. By his death in 2025, it was estimated at about $13 billion, down from the peak. Nonetheless, he remained one of Singapore’s wealthiest, maintaining a top position on the list for years—a man born in 1927, who started with leftover supplies from the British army, died at 98, still one of Singapore’s richest.

His private personality contrasted sharply with his wealth.

Guo Fangfeng was extremely low-profile. Public reports were rare, he rarely attended public events, and kept a distance from the media almost permanently. His “luxury” was a superyacht 84 meters long, named White Rabbit Golf. Family staff described him as someone who enjoyed spending time with grandchildren, fishing, gourmet food, and travel. In August 2025, at age 98, Guo Fangfeng passed away in Singapore, leaving behind three children, eight grandchildren, a great-grandchild, and a vast paint empire across Asia-Pacific.

From a can of mixed paint in 1949 to controlling the fourth-largest global paint giant in 2021, it took him 72 years.

Six billionaires, six lifestyles

After Guo Fangfeng’s death, his wealth did not follow the usual Asian family inheritance path.

Typically, wealth in Asian business families follows two logics: either concentrated in the eldest son to maintain unified control, or divided among children with clear operational obligations. Guo Fangfeng chose neither. He gave the money to his grandchildren, kept the power with his son. Each of the six grandchildren received a share of stock, with no one required to run the business.

This was a deliberate arrangement and a clear judgment.

Wuthelam Holdings distributed all its Nipsea International common shares to Guo Fangfeng’s six grandchildren. Their holdings varied, but each had assets exceeding $1 billion. Meanwhile, Guo Fangfeng’s eldest son, Guo Hup Jin, received a redeemable preferred share in Nipsea International, retaining 90.91% of the voting rights. The money was divided, but decision-making power remained intact.

Family Succession Advisors’ CEO Ethan Chue described this structure as a “rare case in Asian families”—wealth was pre-distributed to the third generation, while operational control was locked in the second. Both happened simultaneously, requiring strong family trust and clear understanding of each heir.

Looking at these six individuals’ choices, Guo Fangfeng’s judgment is evident.

Guo Hup Jin’s three daughters: Charlotte, Henrietta, Victoria

Each inherited about $1.1 billion in shares, the lowest among the six heirs, but their father, Guo Hup Jin, controls the family business. Their wealth structure is “father manages the business, daughters receive dividends.”

Among the three sisters, Charlotte is the most publicly known. Eleven years ago, she co-founded a charity in Bali, providing scholarships, medical services, and psychological counseling for local children. This foundation remains operational and is Charlotte’s main public identity. Henrietta and Victoria have almost no public information; media requests for interviews went unanswered. Notably, Charlotte and another heir each own a luxury home in Singapore, in one of the most exclusive residential areas.

Guo Chuanjin’s branch (second son): April Goh

Guo Chuanjin was a retired mathematics professor with little presence in business. This branch’s uniqueness lies in April Goh taking the largest share—37.5%, about $3.4 billion—and reportedly some of it is held in trust for her two brothers and sisters. Her name does not appear in Guo Fangfeng’s inheritance documents—her father’s generation was skipped, wealth directly transferred to her. Whether there was a special family consideration behind this arrangement remains unknown.

Guo Juezhen’s branch (only daughter): Martin Lavoo and Johan Lavoo

Guo Fangfeng’s only daughter, Guo Juezhen, had two sons, both with the surname Lavoo. Each inherited about $1.3 billion, close to April’s amount (second highest).

Older brother Martin Yuen-An Lavoo, 38, is the most involved in business among the heirs. He is the only third-generation member on Nippon Paint’s board and the only one with entrepreneurial experience—over a decade ago, he co-founded Sustenir Agriculture, a vertical farming startup supported by Temasek, focusing on high-tech indoor cultivation and sustainable food supply chains. Notably, Martin currently resides in the Netherlands, and in the 2026 Forbes list, he is listed as Dutch, ranked 2,858 globally—the only heir among this group to be listed as non-Singaporean.

Johan Zhong An Lavoo, the younger brother, has no publicly available information, and media inquiries have gone unanswered.

These six individuals form a deliberately blurred family puzzle.

Charity, academia, entrepreneurship, low profile—none have stepped forward to claim succession, none introduce themselves as businessmen. The only one with actual operational control, Guo Hup Jin, is over seventy. How the next generation will be arranged remains unknown, and the family has not signaled anything.

Perhaps this is the most intriguing aspect of this family. Guo Fangfeng built an empire over seventy years but did not pass down the role of “operator.” What he left behind is a form of wealth that allows people “not to have to do business.” How each person lives from now on is their own affair.

# 线索爆料 # rzcj@thecapital.com.cn

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