Asian tycoons and their conglomerates tend to have the same repeating pattern. This concept sequence outlines what business expertise looks like in messy, developing countries with little-to-no rule-of-law.
The broad arc of an Asian Tycoon is laid out in the Commoncog essay How to Become an Asian Tycoon. Briefly, the arcs looks like this:
They get their start in business, which is almost always some form of trading. From this they learn 1) calibrated risk taking, 2) a nose for demand, and 3) an intuitive sense of deal leverage.
At some point, every tycoon realises that competition is for suckers.
They seek out (or stumble onto) a moat-protected business. This is usually — though not always — a government granted monopoly.
They have a source of cash that is unassailable. From this they expend outwards.
They survive through political or macro-economic change.
The cases in this sequence demonstrate various aspects of these Asian tycoons and the conglomerates they build.
Some of the themes worth watching out for include:
Corruption (common because the majority of developing Asian countries have governments with weak institutions).
Power — which is necessary when there is no rule of law.
Family succession dynamics.
Control dynamics in a conglomerate structure.