[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s global wealth ranking rose to 37th place as of late last week, thanks to the surge in the stock value at the conglomerate’s electronic arm, a US-based financial news source said on Nov. 19.

According to Bloomberg, Lee, who has been hospitalized since May 2014 after he suffered a heart attack, is valued to be worth $22.2 billion. The total represents an increase of $8 billion this year alone.

His ranking, which stood at 86th place among billionaires in early 2016, has been rising steadily in 2017.

Lee, who inherited the country‘s largest family-run conglomerate or chaebol, upon the death of his father Lee Byung-chull in the late 1980s is the only South Korean national to be included on the list of the world’s 100 wealthiest people.

The spike comes as the stock price of Samsung Electronics, the world‘s leading maker of smartphones and memory chips, has surged some 55 percent throughout 2017, thanks to the strong performance of semiconductors.

By Song Seung-hyun and and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)