Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan, whose businesses spanned across oil, gas and telecommunications, has died at the age of 86, his private investment company said on Thursday.
No cause of death was given.
Krishnan was a founding director of state oil firm Petronas and in 2007, he led the buyout of Malaysian telecom firm Maxis, before relisting it two years later. He also founded satellite broadcaster Astro Malaysia.
He was closely associated with two-time former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, whom he persuaded to develop the 88-floor Petronas towers in Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, in the early 1990s.
Krishnan, who also went by the nickname AK, had stakes in oilfield services provider Bumi Armada, as well as in India’s (now-bankrupt) Aircel and Sri Lanka’s SLTMobitel. He also has interests in U.K. newspaper group Johnston Press; Malaysia’s second-largest cinema chain, TGV; and Celestial Pictures.
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He was Malaysia’s sixth wealthiest person with a net worth of $5.1 billion, according to Forbes.
The son of a civil servant who moved from Sri Lanka to then British Malaya, he grew up in Kuala Lumpur.
Krishnan studied at the University of Melbourne and later graduated with a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1964.
He has donated to education, arts, sports and humanitarian causes in Malaysia.
Once married to a Thai princess, Krishnan spent most of his later years living in Europe.
The post Ananda Krishnan Dies: Malaysian Media & Oil Tycoon Was 86 appeared first on Deadline.
