Overseas Chinese businessmen that have shaped Southeast Asian business sphere in the twentieth century have spawned famous rags to riches success stories such as the Malaysian Chinese dealmaker Robert Kuok, Chinese Indonesian billionaire Liem Sioe Liong, and Hong Kong business tycoon Li Ka-shing. Robert Kuok's successful business record is similar to many other prominent overseas Chinese businessmen who have paved the way for the Southeast Asian business scene during the twentieth century. Kuok's conglomerate encompasses a complex web of private and public companies. Many of his holdings include Wilmar International a palm oil trader company, PPB Group Berhad a sugar and flour miller, the Shangri-La hotel chain in Hong Kong, shipping giant Pacific Carriers, real estate development company Kerry Properties, and formerly the prominent Hong Kong newspaper publisher "South China Morning Post" (later sold to Alibaba) all of which in the aggregate total some $US5 billion. Many of these entrepreneurs come from humble beginnings and possessed little initial wealth themselves, building their businesses from scratch and contributing to the local economy in the process. Each entrepreneur started to acquire wealth and built their fortune from such uninspiring businesses as a corner shop to sell sugar in Malaysia, a village noodle shop in Indonesia, and operating plastic flower manufacturing plants in Hong Kong. These budding Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs and investors started as street merchants, peddlers, hawkers and traders. Many would soon delve into real estate and then reinvested their gains into any business that they deemed profitable. Many of these small and medium-sized businesses have evolved into gargantuan conglomerates, containing an umbrella of numerous interests organized in a dozen of highly diversified subsidiaries. With the onset of globalization in the twenty-first century, many Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs have been actively globalizing their domestic operations and posing themselves as a global competitor in diverse business industries such as financial services, real estate, garment manufacturing and hotel chains. From Thailand to Myanmar to Indonesia, Overseas Chinese business families oversee multibillion-dollar business empires that stretch from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur to Mexico City. Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs and investors are major players in the Southeast Asian economy and have contributed substantially to the economic development of their host countries in Southeast Asia. Much of the business activity of the bamboo network is centered in the major cities of the region, such as Mandalay, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila. The Overseas Chinese bamboo network has played a major role in invigorating the commercial life of Southeast Asia as postcolonial Southeast Asia has become an important pillar of the Overseas Chinese economy since the turn of the 20th century.