Wang Jianlin Wanda Group

10 Property.FIN.qxp_Layout 1 13/9/16 5:41 pm Page 113 Week in China China’s Tycoons Property Wang Jianlin Wanda Group the “football mayor” while Dalian Wanda became a household name in China thanks to its all-conquering football team which “My dominated the Chinese league in the 1990s. philosophy is always the Big break same: be close In 1991, Wanda was one of the state entities with the picked to become a ‘pilot’ joint stock firm. government, Wang got the controlling shareholder of and distance Wanda, which then began to expand beyond myself from Liaoning. politics” Wang came up with the idea of the Wanda Plaza: mega residential and commercial complexes. Local governments welcomed these huge projects with land and other incentives By late 2015 Wanda had 133 Wanda Plazas and 84 hotels nationwide with total leasable area of 26 million square metres. Going global At the apex of Chinese politics stands a group In 2012 Bo Xilai was arrested and lost out to Xi of elites known as the hongerdai, or children Jinping, another hongerdai, in the race to or grandchildren of the revolutionary leaders become China’s supreme leader. It didn’t seem who helped the Communist Party to seize to have affected Wang. power in 1949. Wang is among the blue bloods Indeed, it was after 2012 that Wang began to (“red bloods” may be politically more spend aggressively overseas. His trophy buys appropriate): his father had taken part in and include London properties, UK yacht maker survived the Red Army’s Long March. Sunseeker, a Spanish football club as well as a few Picasso paintings for record prices. Getting started After becoming the world’s biggest landlord Wang was born in Sichuan in 1954. Like his (thanks to his Chinese malls), Wang has set his father before him, Wang joined the People’s sights to oust Walt Disney as the world’s most Key info Liberation Army at 15. Demobilised 18 years influential entertainment conglomerate. In According to Forbes, later he went to Dalian where Wang was asked 2012 he invested $2.6 billion to buy AMC Wang is China’s to take on a failed real estate business. That Entertainment. The deal turned Wanda into richest man with a net worth of $30 became Dalian Wanda. the world’s biggest cinema chain operator. In billion. The rise of Wang and Wanda has 2016 Wanda also acquired Hollywood studio remarkable overlaps with another important Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, as hongerdai: Bo Xilai (who was a junior well as the Odeon & UCI cinema chain in politician in the same city). Europe. Wanda enjoyed something close to carte blanche from the local authorities to give And to relax Imagine China Photo Source: Dalian a facelift just as Bo was climbing the He loves singing. The video of him singing in Year born ranks to become Dalian’s mayor. The two even Wanda’s annual dinner in January 2016 has 1954 shared an interest in football. Bo was known as attracted 3 billion views online. 113 10 Property.FIN.qxp_Layout 1 13/9/16 5:41 pm Page 114 Week in China China’s Tycoons Property Wang Shi China Vanke municipal government. Wang’s start-up was in fact a factory that made anything which would turn a quick profit. “The wealth I After trying out with garments, watches created didn’t and beverages, in 1988 Wang changed his belong to me. I company’s name to Vanke and began his first was only real estate project. That quickly brought Vanke managing into a cash crunch. Wang would load stacks of money for the Vanke’s shares onto a bicycle to sell in a wet country and the market at Rmb1 apiece. That marked the people” beginning of Vanke’s fragmented shareholding structure. Big break Vanke was finally on the growth track thanks to a property boom in Shenzhen. In 1991 it became the first developer to list in Shenzhen. By the turn of the century Vanke needed Vanke’s founder Wang Shi, despite his funding again to expand nationwide. Wang standing and influence, is barely a had to bring in a new strategic shareholder. He billionaire. That was because the controlling picked state giant China Resources (over Hong stake in the property giant he built became Kong’s SHK Properties), to which Vanke sold a largely owned by the state. 15% stake in 1999. With the backing of China Resources, Vanke has grown into China’s Getting started biggest residential developer in terms of sales, Wang was born in 1951 in Guangxi. His father with sales hitting Rmb261 billion in 2015. was an Anhui native and a Red Army soldier who served under Wang Zhen, one of the Takeover saga Party’s Eight Immortals. That’s why Wang also China Resources remained Vanke’s biggest joined the People’s Liberation Army when he single shareholder until 2014 when property- was 17. to-insurance conglomerate Baoneng acquired At 23, after his father became a senior more than 20% in Vanke. The unsolicited Key info official at the railway bureau, Wang enrolled at investment has stoked arguably China’s first His name won’t the Lanzhou Railway University, and hostile takeover war. Wang tried to bring in probably appear on afterwards worked as a railway engineer. In Shenzhen’s state-owned metro firm to help any rich list – he is not among the top 10 1980, he joined the foreign trade promotion fend off Baoneng but China Resources has shareholders of body in Guangdong – the power base of his opposed the deal. The drama was ongoing as Vanke – but his father-in-law Wang Ning (who was the of September 2016 when this book went to legacy goes far province’s police chief and deputy Party boss). press. beyond personal Nevertheless Wang’s success was also pretty wealth. much self-made. He arrived in Shenzhen in And to relax the 1980s and made his first money broking Wang is a bit like the Chinese Richard Branson. Imagine China Photo Source: corn feed. In 1984 he founded his private firm He has skied to the North Pole and is also an Year born though its earliest controlling shareholder was avid mountain climber. He was one of the 1951 still an investment firm under the Shenzhen earliest Chinese to summit Everest. 114 10 Property.FIN.qxp_Layout 1 13/9/16 5:41 pm Page 115 Week in China China’s Tycoons Property Xu Jiayin China Evergrande latecomer but at just the right time. A year later the Asian financial crisis struck. While many bigger more experienced Xu’s model can developers went under, Evergrande grew be summarised quickly as Xu’s “small units, small profits, as “small units, quick return” strategy paid off. small profits, Since 2004, the company has expanded quick return of into a series of second and third-tier cities, funds” which made it something of a pioneer. Previously cities of that rank had been largely ignored by China’s other large developers. That saddled Evergrande’s books with lots of debt and unsold inventory. Evergrande nearly went bust in 2008 amid the global financial crisis. Xu survived through financing from some of Hong Kong’s most astute real estate tycoons. That was only possible, Sina Finance reports, after Xu spent three months playing cards with the Hong Kong billionaires. Evergrande went public in Hong Kong in 2009 and survived. Hurun’s China Rich List Born to a poor family in Henan in 1958, Xu even put him as China’s richest man. Jiayin went on to study at work in a steel Questions on Evergrande’s financial health factory in Wuhan for 10 years. have never died down. In 2013 Citron Research, In 1992, Xu went to Shenzhen to look for an American short-seller, alleged that opportunities. He tried to look for a job using Evergrande was insolvent. Xu fought back by a painstakingly compiled resume which taking legal action against Citron. comprised of 32 pages. Unsurprisingly not Still, as of 2015 Evergrande’s gearing ratio many employers were interested. stands at 93%. It would have exceeded 300% if its perpetual bond were included as liabilities Getting started rather than assets. Two years later he decamped to Guangzhou Xu is also good at punching above his Key info where he helped managed a real estate weight. In 2016, he also brought Evergrande New Fortune project. At the time, new residential into the takeover battle for control of Vanke, magazine put his net developments usually consisted of large units, buying a 7% in its bigger rival with financing worth at Rmb27 billion. often with three bedrooms. Xu reversed this linked to wealth management products. trend by making sure that his own projects contained more small units. The project sold Need to know out quickly. The company’s Guangzhou Evergrande FC has won China’s top football league five Big break consecutive times. In 2013 it became the first In 1996 he established his own company, Chinese team to win the Asia-wide AFC Imagine China Photo Source: Guangzhou Evergrande (which was renamed Champions League. The team is now called Year born China Evergrande in 2016 to reflect its Evergrande Taobao after Alibaba bought a 50% 1958 nationwide presence). Evergrande entered as a stake in the football club. 115 10 Property.FIN.qxp_Layout 1 13/9/16 5:41 pm Page 116 Week in China China’s Tycoons Property Yeung Kwok-keung Country Garden opted for the latter and the accidental developer founded Country Garden.

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