Yin is the chairman of Ruentex Group, a Taipei-based conglomerate with interests in food retailing, textiles and real estate. It also controls Nan Shan Life Insurance, a closely held insurer with revenue of TW$659 billion ($21.8 billion) in 2016. The group also has a stake in publicly traded Sun Art Retail, a hypermarket operator.
Samuel Yin's net worth of $4.45B can buy ...
... and is equivalent to ...
Yin is credited with the sole ownership of Ruentex Group, a closely held company he inherited from his father. Three of the business units of Ruentex Group are publicly traded: Ruentex Industries, Ruentex Development and Ruentex Engineering & Construction. He owns shares in these businesses through a network of holding entities based in Taiwan, according to annual reports filed by the companies for 2015.
Ruentex Group also controls 73 percent of Nan Shan Life Insurance through an 80 percent stake in holding company Ruen Chen. The group owns 91 percent of the insurer, according to a 2015 Ruentex Development company presentation. Ruentex Development and Ruentex Industries hold 48 percent of Ruen Chen. The remaining 32 percent stake is valued separately using the average price-to-book value multiple of three publicly traded peer companies: China Life Insurance, Fubon Financial Holding and Cathay Financial.
Revenue for the rest of Ruentex Group in 2015 is derived from an estimate by China Credit Information Systems. Revenue from assets that are valued separately, such as Nan Shan Life and publicly traded companies, is deducted from the calculation. The valuation is based on the average enterprise value-to-sales, value-to-EBIT and value-to-EBITDA multiples of two peers: Dah Chong Hong Holdings and Daewoo International.
The billionaire's stake in Sun Art Retail Group, a publicly traded Chinese food retailer, isn't included in the net worth analysis because it's held through publicly traded Ruentex Industries and Ruentex Development. Shares in publicly traded companies that are held by his charitable foundations aren't included either.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, charitable donations, taxes and market performance. The debt used to finance the purchase of Nan Shan Life in 2011 is included as a liability.
Yin declined to comment on his net worth.
Samuel Yin was born in Taipei in 1950. He studied history at the city's Chinese Culture University before completing his MBA at National Taiwan University and receiving a PhD from National Chengchi University, according to his biography on the website of the Tang Prize Foundation.
He joined his father's textile maker Ruentex Industries and helped establish real estate division Ruentex Developments in 1977. A prominent supporter of closer ties between Taiwan and China, he stepped down as chairman of Ruentex Industries in 1993, and began focusing on investing in China.
The first RT-Mart hypermarket opened in Taiwan in 1997. A year later, he set up Chinese grocer Sun Art in conjunction with France's Auchan chain. The merchant started to trade on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2011, the same year Yin bought a controlling stake in Taiwanese insurer Nan Shan from AIG.
The billionaire, who is married with two children, started the Tang Prize in 2013 to encourage scientific and cultural research.