Thanks to an early and unexpected gift from her father, 36-year-old Yang Huiyan is Asia's youngest female billionaire. She's also one of the richest women on the continent outright, with a worth of $13bn. All of it more or less came to her overnight after her father spontaneously decided to give her 55% of his real estate company Country Garden Holdings in 2007. At the time she was just 24.
Huiyan may not have been expecting the gift, but she was being groomed to take control of the company in the long term. She traveled to America to study as a teenager, graduating with a degree from Ohio State University in Marketing and Logistics. She's shown her worth to the company on multiple occasions; her dad is still in charge, but she serves as vice chairperson and was credited with the idea of creating new shares in the firm. That brought in revenue of $410m, which goes some way to repaying the enormous investment her father made in her.
To insure one’s house, one’s car or to underwrite a life insurance policy, that is common practice. But who would pay an insurance premium for his/her thumb, legs or smile? Stars, of course.
At the top of the ranking are the legs of Mariah Carey, worth 810 million USD: The diva became, in 2006, the Gillette brand muse for the advertising campaign «Legs of a Goddess». She then took out an insurance policy with London Lloyds to protect her legs, a decision that is far from being insignificant. Among its customers, the London insurer then included several icons of music, such as Bob Dylan or Rod Stewart.
David Beckham’s body insured for 195 million USD: European champion with Manchester United in 1999, David Beckham was in 2006 the most renowned footballer of the planet. In relation to his sporting activities, he took out an insurance cover for his legs. The huge amount paid for his insurance would reportedly exceed the 103 million USD disbursed by Real Madrid for the cover of Christiano Ronaldo in 2009. The fashion model would later extend his insurance cover to his entire body.
15 million USD in insurance for Kim Kardashian’s curves: The curves of Kim Kardashian are her number one beauty asset. The reality TV star, who is crazy about plastic surgery, has underwritten an insurance policy worth 15 million USD to protect her famous butt.
The culinary critic Egon Ronay assured his taste buds: The famous Hungarian culinary critic has insured his taste buds since 1957, for the amount of 400 000 USD. An original insurance policy which allows him to cover his sense of taste without which he will no longer be able to practice his job.