According to Bloomberg, Singaporean resident Leo KoGuan has quickly (and quietly) become Tesla’s third-largest individual shareholder over the past couple of years.
Bank records furnished by KoGuan reveal that, as of late September, he owns 6.31 million Tesla shares, along with 1.82 million stock options that give him the right to buy Tesla between $450 to $550 per share.
KoGuan’s Tesla shares are currently worth over $7 billion USD, trailing only fellow billionaire Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the richest person in history‘s respective stakes in the company.
What makes KoGuans meteoric rise in the stock market interesting is that it went under almost everyone’s radar, and that it happened over the course of just two years. Koguan only picked up stock trading in 2019, before which he made a small fortune as a retail investor on a number of projects.
KoGuan is a founder of SHI International Corp., an enterprise software company based out of Somerset, New Jersey, with $11.1 billion USD of annual revenue.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index values the privately-held company at $3.2 billion USD. KoGuan is big into charity, donating generously to a number of top universities in China and even having a couple buildings named after him.
When he sat down for a virtual interview with Bloomberg out of his $46 million USD penthouse atop Singapore’s harbor, KoGuan submitted to a 1-on-1 interaction with the media for the first time.
KoGuan amassed his Tesla fortune doing what most analysts would tell you not to do: he put all his eggs in one basket. Back when he initially started trading stock, KoGuan had a diversified portfolio. But when most of his holdings started taking a big dip, he sold all of his positions except Tesla.
Over the next couple of years, KoGuan kept doubling down on his investment in Tesla. When the markets crashed and he almost lost everything, he still kept buying, with the following strategy in place:
Buy short-term in-the-money stock options, take the profits when the stock goes up, use some of those proceeds to buy actual shares, and put the rest into another options bet.
Simply put, KoGuan doubled down on his bet on Tesla — again, and again, and again. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” KoGuan said. “Fortunately, I win more of the time than I lose.”
Like many of Tesla’s investors, KoGuan is a big believer in Elon Musk and his goals. “I believe in Elon’s great mission,” Leo KoGuan exlaimedd via Twitter. Believing in what you’re investing in is key, according to one of the richest “Teslanaires”.
https://twitter.com/KoguanLeo/status/1439082985991462917
KoGuan has no plans of cashing out anytime soon, he said. The billionaire is in a position where if he loses all of his Tesla holdings, he can still fall back on his stake in SHI International.
KoGuan’s goal is to make $100 billion USD (or more) from his investment. He plans on using his fortune to fund the realization of his dreams, which include free healthcare and material comforts for all of society.
Earlier this week, Tesla crossed a $1 trillion USD market capitalization for the first time. At the time of writing, Tesla shares are trading at $1,114 USD.
