「Core Tips」 Recently, the Hurun Rich List released the 2021 China Top 100 Rich List, the total wealth of this year's richest people is about 11.41 trillion yuan, an increase of 11% year-on-year, behind the sharp increase in wealth of the rich, is the rapid development of China's economy in the past 20 years. Through the changes in the list of the 100 richest people in the past 20 years, we can see the rotation of China's economic growth engine and look for the "wealth code" of entrepreneurs.
Author | Yang Guang
Edit | Zi Rui
On the 2021 Hurun China 100 Rich List, Zhong Shui of Nongfu Mountain Spring became the new richest man with a value of 390 billion yuan. This is also after 8 years of real estate and Internet rotation, the richest man returned to industry. And 2 of the top three are from real enterprises, the other is Zeng Yuqun of the Ningde era, this year's wealth has increased by nearly 3 times compared with last year, with an increase of 200 billion yuan, ranking third with 320 billion yuan.
Ma Yun and Ma Huateng, the top two last year, the former shrunk its wealth by 145 billion yuan, ranking fifth with 255 billion yuan, and the latter shrank by 73 billion yuan, ranking fourth with 317 billion yuan. Byte's Zhang Yiming staged a counterattack, with wealth soaring by 230 billion yuan, ranking second with 340 billion yuan, surpassing Ma Yun and Ma Huateng.
In the more than 20 years since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, China has become the world's factory and has become the world's second largest economy. These 20 years have been a magnificent 20 years, a turbulent 20 years, and 20 years in which business tycoons have led the way for three or five years.
"Leopard Change" combs through the data of the Hurun Rich List in the past 20 years, and decodes the "wealth code" through the changes of the rich in the past 20 years.
1. The change of the richest people
In 2001, the "first year" of China's accession to the WTO, the richest people in this year were Liu Yongxing and Liu Yonghao brothers of New Hope Group, which was the only time the richest man from agriculture and the only time to take charge of the company headquartered in the west (Sichuan).
Since then, they have never been infected with the richest man, and their fame is not as big as the later Internet and real estate giants, but they are the richest people who have been listed the most times. From the Hurun Rich List since 2001, Liu Yonghao's brothers have not fallen once. Compared with the richest people who have been high-profile out of the circle in recent years, Liu Yonghao brothers are low-key and pragmatic, starting from planting and aquaculture in the early stage of entrepreneurship, gradually covering agriculture, real estate, finance, chemical resources and other sectors, and have been operating steadily for decades, which can be called a model of evergreen foundation.
Entering the new millennium, China's Internet industry has ushered in explosive growth. In 2003, Ding Lei, the founder of NetEase, who was only 32 years old, tasted the taste of the richest man for the first time. Compared with the previous richest people who are over the age of 50, Ding Lei, who is in his early 30s, is flourishing, and he has also inspired more young people to embrace the Internet era. In these 21 issues of the list, Ding Lei has been listed a total of 18 times, which is the Internet bigwig with the most times on the list, more than Robin Li, Ma Huateng, and Ma Yun.
Coincidentally with Liu Yonghao's brothers, Ding Lei's hobby is raising pigs. In 2009, Ding Lei announced his own pig raising plan, enclosing a plot of land in Zhejiang and raising more than 100 test pigs. Later, "Little Black Pig" became the signature dish of the annual Wuzhen Internet Conference.
A year later, the richest man fell to Guomei Huang Guangyu. After joining the WTO, the pockets of the Chinese began to bulge, and home appliances changed from luxury goods in the past to standard equipment for ordinary people. At that time, online shopping was in the ascendant, and Ma Yun's Taobao had just turned one year old, and he was still dying with eBay. Buyers have to go to offline stores, and Gome is one of the options that cannot be avoided.
In 2004, Huang Guangyu's Pengrun Group acquired a 65% stake in the assets of 94 Gome stores in 22 cities for HK$8.3 billion. On June 7 of the same year, Gome Electric appliances successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by means of a backdoor, which helped Huang Guangyu become the richest man, and in the next four years, he opened up twice.
In 2008, Huang Guangyu was investigated by relevant departments for suspected illegal loans by his subsidiaries, and on August 30, 2010, Huang Guangyu was sentenced to 14 years in prison for illegal business operations, insider trading and bribery, which is the only former richest man to be sentenced to prison.
When Huang Guangyu was imprisoned, China's Internet retail was still in the bud; by the time he returned, the situation had turned upside down. For Huang Guangyu, missing the golden decade of Internet retail, it is not easy to regroup and be surrounded by strong enemies such as Ali and JD.com. What is even more lamentable is that Suning, Gome's biggest competitor at the time, has also lost itself in the expansion of the past 10 years and is trapped in a debt crisis.
After Huang Guangyu, there is a saying that the richest man has a "magic curse". Wang Jianlin and Xu Jiayin both suffered Waterloo after they reached the top of the richest man, so much so that it was rumored that some rich people tried to "ask" for it.
From 2009 to 2012, it was a brief period of good times that belonged to the industry, and BYD's Wang Chuanfu, Wahaha Zongqinghou, and Sany Heavy Industry's Liang Wengen shared the richest man in these years.
Since 2013, real estate and the Internet have taken turns to sit on the throne, and the threshold of the richest man has also entered the 100 billion mark. Among them, Ma Yun was the richest man 4 times, Wang Jianlin 3 times, and Xu Jiayin 1 time. But in response to that old saying, there is no cold in the heights. Since the beginning of 2017, Wang Jianlin, who shouted "first earn 100 million small goals", suffered a capital chain crisis under his umbrella, and had to "sell and sell" all the way with the determination of a hero to break his wrist, and was once ridiculed by netizens as "the richest man" became "the first bearer", fortunately, the burden after slimming down was a lot lighter, which was the most difficult but time.
Xu Jiayin, who took over the mantle of the richest man from Wang Jianlin, did not learn a lesson when Wanda "lost weight" and is still expanding, including a large-scale entry into the extremely expensive automobile industry. Nowadays, Evergrande's total debt has exceeded 1.9 trillion yuan, and how to resolve the debt crisis is still unknown.
In 2021, Zhong Shui of Nongfu Spring topped the richest man, allowing the richest man to return to industry again after a big circle.
The change of the richest man is the epitome of the change of the times. In the past 20 years, the richest man has shifted from agricultural tycoon to offline retail tyrant, and then relayed by the real estate industry to the hands of Internet tycoons, which is the best script for China's wealth story in the past 20 years.
2, real estate from scenery to loneliness
Over the past 20 years, China's economy has grown strongly, and the total wealth of the richest people on the list has also risen rapidly, and the total wealth of the richest people on the list in 2021 is nearly 60 times that of 2003.
From a geographical point of view, the eastern coast, which was the first to bathe in the spring breeze of reform and opening up, is the place where the richest people on the list are most "gathered". Among them, Guangdong Province, which brings together two first-tier cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, has shown the strength of a unique file, starting from the release of the first list of 100 richest people, Guangdong enterprises have 443 times on the list, followed by 386 times in Beijing and 292 times in Shanghai.
These economically strong provinces not only have the largest number of people on the list, but also have a variety of distributed industries, from manufacturing industries such as automobiles, real estate, and home appliances, to services such as finance and the Internet, as well as health industries such as medicine and medical treatment, all of which have layouts, reflecting a sound industrial chain and strong development resilience.
In contrast, the richest people in some mainland provinces are mostly from energy, resources, agricultural and other enterprises, such as shanxi steel, coal chemical enterprises, Henan animal husbandry enterprises, Hebei steel, nonferrous metals, natural gas enterprises and so on. In general, the dominant industries in the northern and inland provinces are relatively single, while the dominant industries in the eastern coastal areas are more diverse.
If you look at the industry, for most of the past 20 years, the real estate industry has been an absolute king, with 764 people on the list of rich people involved in the real estate industry. Not only is the number and volume large, but the distribution area is also very wide, from the southeast coast to the west, from Hong Kong to Heilongjiang, there are real estate rich people on the list. In the five years from 2013 to 2017, the richest people on the rich list came from the real estate industry four times.
This is the golden age of real estate, many first- and second-tier cities house prices have doubled in a few years, the whole people "speculation", piled up in big cities to buy houses have also led to a surge in house prices in many popular cities.
But the king has no eternity, in recent years, as the state has increased the regulation and control of the property market, as well as the implementation of the development concept of "housing and not speculation", the boom of real estate billionaires on the list is gradually fading.
In the 10 years from 2003 to 2012, the number of people on the list of rich people involved in real estate companies was basically more than 40 every year. Among them, it reached its peak in 2009, with as many as 51 people. During this period, the United States was deeply involved in the subprime mortgage crisis, the global central bank released water, and China also launched a "4 trillion" stimulus plan, along with the soaring house prices, the value of the housing enterprise rich naturally rose.
Since then, as the state has strengthened real estate regulation, the number of housing enterprises on the list of the richest began to decline continuously. In 2016 and 2017, there was a brief rebound, but after strengthening the regulation of the property market and resolutely implementing the concept of "housing and not speculation", the number of rich housing enterprises on the list declined all the way, and only 19 people remained in 2021, which is an intuitive footnote to the gradual end of the "golden age" of real estate.
In the past 20 years, the only thing that can compete with real estate is the Internet industry. However, in terms of manufacturing rich people, the Internet industry is much weaker, and there are only 98 people on the list of rich people in the Internet industry (including e-commerce, online games, online shopping, financial technology, instant messaging, etc.), and only the real estate industry is more than 10%. In addition, Internet giants are mostly concentrated in Developed Areas along the Eastern Coast such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou, which are basically well-known enterprises, and the pattern is relatively stable, which is related to the winner-take-all characteristics of the Internet industry.
However, at this time and another, the situation that large Internet platforms use their monopoly advantages to profit and even hinder innovation has attracted great attention from regulators. In the past two years, anti-monopoly in the Internet industry has become an important issue in maintaining economic fairness, and oligopolistic enterprises such as Ali, Tencent, and Meituan have all been investigated by anti-monopoly.
3. New energy becomes a new outlet for rich people
When real estate is going to be lonely, Internet giants are subject to anti-monopoly, and in recent years, new energy has become a new outlet for wealth creation.
Driven by the "3060" goal of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, in recent years, China's new energy industry has flourished, and the number of rich people in related industries has reached 37.
However, the richest people on the new energy list have also experienced a shift from photovoltaics, solar energy to lithium batteries. More than a decade ago, when it comes to new energy, it is impossible to avoid solar energy and photovoltaic companies such as Wuxi Suntech, Jiangxi Saiwei, and Tianwei Yingli. In 2006 and 2008, Wuxi Suntech ushered in a highlight moment, and the executives climbed to the fifth and eighth places in the list of the richest people respectively. However, with the arrival of the global financial tsunami in 2008 and a series of "double reverse" surveys in Europe and the United States, the ranking of such companies plummeted, and Wuxi Suntech fell from 8th to 59th in 2009, and has since lost access to the list.
10 years later, in 2018, lithium batteries took over the banner of photovoltaic and solar energy, representing new energy once again shined in the list of the richest people, and Ningde era and Yiwei lithium energy were both on the list for the first time.
This year, Zeng Yuqun, the founder of CATL, ranked third in the list of the 100 richest people, and the other two executives ranked 24 and 86 respectively. Among them, it is inseparable from the beautiful performance of "Ning Wang" in the stock market, and in November, the stock price of the Ningde era continued to hit a record high, with a market value of more than 1.4 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 15% of the weight of the ChiNext board, becoming the "Ning Wang" with the same name as the "Mao Index".
Complementary to lithium batteries are new energy vehicles. At present, China has become the world's largest new energy vehicle market. In the past decade or so, the car manufacturers on the rich list have been slightly lonely, and for a long time there have only been geely automobiles and BYD. However, with the popularity of new energy vehicles, this situation has changed in 2020.
As a representative of the new car-making forces, He Xiaopeng of Xiaopeng Automobile has been on the list of the richest for two consecutive years since 2020. Now, in the major city stores, in addition to luxury goods, it is necessary to count the stores of new energy vehicles. China's new energy vehicles are expected to reproduce the glory of domestic smart phones and shine on the international stage.
The hurun report in the past 20 years shows the transformation of the old and new kinetic energy of China's economic growth engine, reflecting the strong resilience and solid foundation of China's economic development. The tide that opens the key to wealth on these lists is to catch up with the dividends of national development, go with the flow, make the main business lean and stronger, become the industry leader, and finally achieve something. On the other hand, if the mentality is drifting, or even those who go against the current, they will either be thrown out of the way or directly overturn the ship.