Tatparanandam Ananda Krishnan (1 April 1938 – 28 November 2024), also known by the initialism A. K., was a Malaysian entrepreneur who was a founder and chairperson of Usaha Tegas and founder of Yu Cai Foundation (YCF). At the time of his death, he was estimated to have a net worth of US$5.1 billion according to

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

making him the 671th wealthiest person in the world and 3rd richest in Malaysia. Ananda Krishnan shunned public exposure and was known to maintain a low profile for a person of his stature.

Early life and education

Ananda Krishnan was born on 1 April 1938 in

Brickfields A brickfield is an open site where bricks are made. Place names are often formed from the word. Brickfield, Brickfields, or Brickfielder may also refer to: Australia * Brickfielder, an arid wind * Brickfield Hill, an area of Sydney * Brickfields ...

, Kuala Lumpur and has his roots in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He studied at Vivekananda Tamil School in Brickfields and furthered his studies at

Victoria Institution The Victoria Institution is the oldest secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a memorial school, so-called because it was partly funded by public subscription intended for the erection of a permanent memorial to commemorate the Golden ...

, Kuala Lumpur. Later, as a

Colombo Plan The Colombo Plan is a regional intergovernmental organization that began operations on 1 July 1951. The organization was conceived at an international conference, The Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri ...

scholar, he attended the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

, Australia for his B.A. (Honours) degree majoring in political science. During that time, he boarded in the

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suburb of Hawthorn. Following that, Krishnan obtained a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from

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, graduating in 1964. Krishnan was a follower of

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and had three children, two daughters and a son. His only son, Ven Ajahn Siripanyo is a

Theravada ''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...

Buddhist monk. Contrary to many misconceptions, Ananda Krishnan was not awarded any federal or honorific titles.

Career

Krishnan's first entrepreneurial venture was a Malaysian consultancy MAI Holdings Sdn Bhd. He set up Exoil Trading, which went on to purchase oil drilling concessions in various countries. Later, he moved into gambling (in Malaysia). In the early part of the 1990s, he started diversifying into the multimedia arena. He had business interests in media (

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), satellite (

MEASAT MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. (formerly Binariang Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd.) is a Malaysian communications satellite operator that owns and operates the MEASAT (Malaysia East Asia Satellite) and AFRICASAT spacecraft. The company provides s ...

), oil and gas ( Bumi Armada, Pexco), telecommunications (

Maxis Maxis is an American video game developer and a Division (business), division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright (game designer), Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by Electronic Arts in 1997. Maxis is ...

, Sri Lanka Telecom). He owned stakes in Tanjong Public Limited Company, an investment holding company with subsidiaries involved in leisure (

TGV Cinemas TGV Cinemas Sdn Bhd (also known as TGV Pictures, formerly known as Tanjong Golden Village) is the second largest cinema chain in Malaysia. As of May 2024, TGV Cinemas has 40 multiplexes with 325 screens and more than 53,000 seats. TGV Cinemas i ...

) and property (67% Maxis Tower etc.). Krishnan first came to prominence by helping to organise the

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concert with Bob Geldof in the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s, he began building a multimedia empire that now includes two telecommunication companies—

Maxis Communications Maxis Berhad (Trade name, doing business as Maxis) is a communications service provider in Malaysia. It is one of the oldest and largest telecommunications companies in the country. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it provides a varie ...

, MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems and

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—and has three communication satellites circumnavigating the Earth. He effected the purchase of 46% of

, the country's largest cellular phone company, from

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AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...

British Telecom BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...

, Belgacom,

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and Royal KPN N.V. for $1,180 million—raising his stake to 70%. Maxis has more than ten million subscribers, with around 40% market share in Malaysia. He also owned a stake in Sri Lanka Telecom. In an agreement between

and India's Sun Network, Krishnan planned to produce TV channels which cater to the Indian market, especially

Tamil people The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is one of the longe ...

in countries such as US, Western Europe and the Middle East. He also planned to offer TV services featuring Web-based interactivity. Ananda Krishnan owned stakes in

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB; zh, t=電視廣播有限公司) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong. The company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Canton ...

.com and the

Shaw Brothers Shaw Brothers (HK) Limited () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, operating from 1925 to 2011. In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...

movie archives.

Death

Krishnan died of natural causes in Swiss Alps on 28 November 2024 at the age of 86.

Philanthropy

Ananda Krishnan donated to education, the arts, sports and humanitarian causes in Malaysia through his company Usaha Tegas, and its subsidiaries. In 2003, Krishnan's Usaha Tegas launched the Harapan Nusantara education fund. Since 2004 the fund has sponsored 100 students a year to attend special programs at local private universities that collaborate with foreign universities. In the same year the company also started the Yu Cai Education Foundation with a grant of $6.6 million to help ethnic Chinese groups. In 2006, Ananda Krishnan's media company Astro introduced its scholarship program, promising to devote an annual RM2 million to support promising Malaysian undergraduate and graduate students studying media and broadcasting. In 2008, he contributed to the opening of the Montfort Girls Centre to help orphaned and underprivileged girls develop their vocational skills. In 2010, Krishnan was featured on the Forbes list of 48 Heroes of Philanthropy. In January 2015, Ananda Krishnan and the Usaha Tegas Group launched the Yu Cai Foundation (YCF). YCF provides student scholarships for Mandarin-based schools and grants to educational institutions which promote the study of vernacular languages, especially Mandarin and English.

References

External links