Richard Chandler

Richard Fred Chandler (born 1958/59) is a New Zealand-born billionaire businessman. He is chairman of the Clermont Group, a Singapore-based conglomerate. Chandler "has a reputation for buying struggling companies and successfully rebuilding them," according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation News. Early life Born in New Zealand, Chandler is the son of beekeepers Robert and Marija Chandler, who launched and operated Chandler House, a department store in Hamilton, New Zealand. Chandler attended a boarding school. He obtained a bachelor of commerce from the University of Auckland in 1979 and wrote his master's thesis at the same institution in 1982, researching board structure and accountability in New Zealand. Career Chandler began his career at Arthur Andersen in Auckland and then worked at KPMG in London. In 1982, he returned to New Zealand and became the CEO of Chandler House. Chandler was formerly CEO of the Sovereign group of companies, in partnership with his brother, Christopher Chandler. Between 1986 and 2006, Sovereign invested in companies and governments in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, and in industries including telecommunications, electric utilities, steel, oil and gas, banking and oil refining. They agreed to split their assets in 2006, with Richard creating Orient Global and Christopher starting Legatum Capital. Orient Global changed its name to Richard Chandler Corporation in April 2010 before becoming the Chandler Corporation in 2013, and the Clermont Group in 2016. Richard's investment style has been described as deep value investing, primarily in global emerging markets and especially in distress situations. Richard Chandler's business ventures have been tinged with themes of contrarian investment, corporate governance and social responsibility, especially by investing in and managing companies with national socio-economic implications. He once told Institutional Investor, "We do have altruistic motives that some investors who are looking for a path of least resistance find hard to understand, but we don’t want to be defined by our corporate governance battles. We are value investors with a sense of responsibility, not activists."