Terry Gou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Terry Gou (traditional Chinese: 郭台銘; pinyin: Guō Táimíng) (born October 8th, 1950) is a Taiwanese tycoon who leads Hon Hai Precision, a company that manufactures electronics on contract for other companies. It is now the largest such Electronics Manufacturing Services company in the world, with factories in several countries but mainly in mainland China where it employs 450,000 people, and is China's largest exporter.^[1]

His parents lived in mainland China before they fled to Taiwan in 1949. He founded Hon Hai in Taiwan in 1974 with ten workers to make plastic parts for television sets. In 1988 he opened his first factory in mainland China, in Shenzhen, where his largest factory remains today. He now owns 30% of the public company and was ranked 142nd on Forbes magazine's 2007 list of the world's richest people, with a net worth of US$5.5 billion.^[2]

A charismatic man with an autocratic leadership style, he tries to avoid publicity. In 2005 his wife died of breast cancer at age 55; his brother died in 2007 of leukemia. He has a son (born 1976) who works in the film industry and a daughter (born 1978) who works in the financial sector.

In 2002 he bought a Roztěž castle near Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic for $30 million. In 2007 court documents were revealed showing that he had been blackmailed by a woman with whom he had had an affair and who in 1992 secretly shot a video of them having sex together.^[3]

He founded an educational charity organization with his wife in 2000. He has said that he intends to eventually give away one third of his wealth to charity.^[1]