TAIPEI —
Taiwanese tycoon Wang Yung-ching, the island’s third-richest man and founder of petrochemical giant Formosa Plastics Corp, died Wednesday while visiting his company’s U.S. subsidiary in New Jersey, the corporation said Thursday. He was 91. Wang, who built up his financial empire from scratch in the 1950s, died in his sleep from heart failure, the company said. He is survived by two daughters and eight sons.
Last year, Formosa Plastics, valued at about $60 billion, was Taiwan’s most profitable company, local media said, while Forbes listed Wang as the world’s 178th richest man and the third richest here, with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion. Wang’s rags-to-riches career spanning seven decades paralleled, and indeed spurred to some extent, the island’s transformation from an agricultural backwater to a high-tech, services-based economy.