Game of power for the richest woman

Author: Arbutus

Source: Business People (ID: biz-leaders)

China is already a cradle of success for female entrepreneurs, with the top five of the world's top 10 self-made women in 2023 all coming from China.

Thanks to the rapid development of China's economy, these rich women are the favorites of fate and the tide of the times. Behind their dazzling wealth, the wealth creation of the times flashes. Interpreting their wealth accumulation process can reflect the development and changes of China's economic structure to a certain extent.

In the sixth issue of "Business People"'s "Rich List", we set our sights on the richest women on the rich list.

 one

At the first "Hurun Report" in 1999, a remarkable female figure appeared.

Her name is Liu Xiaoqing, ranked 45th. Although this slightly crude list is difficult to calculate her true wealth, only generally marked as 50 million to 100 million yuan, the public is convinced of her wealth. Like her film and television role "Wu Zetian", Liu Xiaoqing made people at that time see the many possibilities of being a woman: she can be beautiful and capable; You can be both a female star and a female boss.

Unfortunately, because of irregular management, Liu Xiaoqing, the "richest woman in China", quickly rose to the top and fell sharply, and was imprisoned in 2002 on suspicion of tax evasion, and has since lost her reputation.

After Liu Xiaoqing, Yang Lan also appeared on the "Hurun Report" in 2000 (ranked 38th). Yang Lan, who is a household name as a host, got involved in the business world very early and founded Sunshine Seven Star Investment Group and Sunshine Satellite TV around 1999. Subsequently, due to business problems, Yang Lan's media career suffered setbacks, but her business path did not stop. According to the enterprise investigation, Yang Lan currently controls 72 enterprises and 75 indirect shareholding enterprises, involving film and television, media, tourism, education, science and technology and other fields. Among them, the "Jizhaojia" brand, co-founded by her and her husband Wu Zheng, has emerged in the field of new energy vehicles in recent years, with a valuation of nearly 50 billion yuan, and is a veritable successful businesswoman.

Although these two famous women are in front, in the early rich list, women are more like embellishments, the number is far behind, and the ranking and wealth volume are far inferior to the men on the list. This situation continued until 2006, and it changed dramatically.

That year, ND Paper went public in Hong Kong, and 49-year-old founder Zhang Yin became the richest man in all of China. Zhang Yin is a typical self-made entrepreneur. Born in Shaoguang, Guangdong in 1957, she worked as an accountant after graduating from university, and went to Hong Kong to start a business at the age of 28, starting from the most unregarded waste paper recycling industry, earning small profits by buying low and selling high in the international waste paper market, and completing capital accumulation.

After that, she cut into the downstream of the industrial chain and expanded production capacity through large-scale acquisitions, creating the world's largest packaging paper company, Nine Dragons Paper. In March 2006, ND Paper was listed in Hong Kong, and in October of the same year, the company announced its first annual report, achieving a net profit of 1.375 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 352.6%. ND Paper's stock price soared rapidly, and Zhang Yin's value also rose to 27 billion yuan, beating Huang Guangyu, Zhu Mengyi, Xu Rongmao, Rong Zhijian and other male heroes to the top of the wealth list that year.

Also in this year, the Hurun Research Institute for the first time specifically listed female rich and launched the sub-list "Hurun Women Rich List" (the name of the report was changed to "Hurun Women Entrepreneur List" in 2017).

A review of the 2006 list of female rich people shows that the wealth of Chinese female entrepreneurs at that time was not large, and the threshold for entering the list was only 500 million yuan. China's top 10 female entrepreneurs have a total wealth of 65 billion yuan, of which the richest Zhang Yin has a personal wealth of 27 billion yuan, accounting for one-third of the total wealth of the top 10 people.

In addition, there is an interesting phenomenon, the relatively young age of the female rich. In 2006, 35 women's names appeared on the 500 list, and their average age was 44.9 years, nearly three years younger than the average age of 47.7 years in the list.

 two

2007 was another year of women leading the singing leads. Following Zhang Yin, Yang Huiyan, who was only 26 years old, was born and became the richest man in the country that year.

Unlike Zhang Yin, who started from scratch, Yang Huiyan is a typical heir. In 2005, Country Garden founder Yang Guoqiang decided to transfer 70% of Country Garden's shares to her second daughter, Yang Huiyan, who had just stepped out of school.

In April 2007, Country Garden Holdings was listed in Hong Kong. Yang Huiyan became the richest person in China because she held 59.5% of the company's total share capital after listing, with a wealth of 130 billion yuan, and Ma Yun and Ma Huateng were far behind her. According to the "Hurun Report", Ma Yun's wealth that year was 5 billion yuan, ranking 148th in the country, and Ma Huateng's wealth was 12 billion yuan, ranking 50th in the country.

Together with Yang Huiyan and Zhang Yin, they stand on the list of female rich, as well as Wu Yajun of Longhu Real Estate. Although most media refer to Wu Yajun as a self-made person, it cannot be ignored that her entrepreneurial story is inseparable from the support of her ex-husband Cai Kui, to some extent, she belongs to the type of husband and wife starting a business together.

According to the data, Wu Yajun was born in Chongqing in 1964, and her first job was as a reporter for China City Appearance News, a publication in charge of the Ministry of Construction, which built up the initial resources for her to enter the real estate industry. In 1995, Wu Yajun and her husband Cai Kui founded their own real estate company, and the first project was the "Longhu Garden" jointly developed with the official background "China Science and Technology Construction Company", which also became the reason for the name of Longhu Real Estate.

In 2009, Longfor Real Estate was listed in Hong Kong, and Wu Yajun and his wife, who jointly held 72% of the shares, were worth more than 30 billion yuan (before listing, Wu Yajun and Cai Kui held 43% and 29% of Longfor Real Estate through two trust funds, respectively). In 2012, the two divorced, divided their assets, and Wu Yajun fully took over the operation of Longfor Real Estate. In the following years, riding the east wind of the real estate industry, Wu Yajun developed Longhu Real Estate into a leading real estate company with sales of more than 100 billion yuan, and she herself also has a transcendent position in the real estate industry, occupying the top position in the list of female rich people in 2011 and 2012.

Since then, the iron triangle position of China's richest woman has been born. From 2006 to 2022, the position of the richest woman will basically alternate between Zhang Yin, Yang Huiyan and Wu Yajun. According to the statistics of "business figures", in this 17-year battle to chase deer, Yang Huiyan won the championship 10 times, Zhang Yin 3 times, and Wu Yajun 2 times.

The richest road of Zhang, Yang and Wu is closely related to the rise and fall of the industry and the rise of the capital market. The wealth explosion of Yang Huiyan and Wu Yajun benefited from the wave of Hong Kong listings of mainland real estate enterprises around 2007, and the leverage effect of the capital market amplified their book wealth.

Around 2009, the negative impact of the global subprime mortgage crisis spread, the domestic real estate market entered a period of adjustment, and the large-scale manufacturing industry with leading advantages was sought after by the capital market. In 2009 and 2010, Zhang Yin of papermaking regained the richest man's throne. Then, the next decade of China's real estate industry arrived, and Yang Huiyan made a comeback.

In the ten years that Yang Huiyan dominated the screen, Zhou Qunfei's appearance was an accident. Zhou Qunfei, known as the "queen of manufacturing", originated from the myth of wealth creation in Apple concept stocks. Zhou Qunfei was born in rural Hunan and was forced to drop out of school at the age of 15, starting as a migrant girl on the assembly line. In 1993, she started her own business and opened a small OEM workshop, gradually establishing herself in the industry. In 2003, Zhou Qunfei established Lens Technology in Shenzhen, focusing on the research and development, production and sales of mobile phone protective window glass. In 2007, the birth of the iPhone sent Zhou Qunfei to the throne of "Global Mobile Phone Glass Queen". According to reports, from the first generation of iPhone to iPhone 6 plus, Lens Technology's mobile phone glass screen is selected.

In 2015, Lens Technology landed on the ChiNext and became popular because of the hot concept of "Apple Industry Chain", and once became the king of ChiNext, and Zhou Qunfei, who held 87.9% of the shares, became the richest woman in China that year.

After Zhou Qunfei, Chen Lihua also became the richest man. For a long time, Chen Lihua has occupied the top five positions of the female rich list and is one of the most famous female rich people in China. According to the data, Chen Lihua originally relied on the Chinese-style furniture trading business to obtain the first pot of gold. In the 80s of last century, Chen Lihua immigrated to Hong Kong and founded Hong Kong Fuhua International to transform the real estate business. After that, he returned to Beijing and became involved in the real estate development around Chang'an Avenue, becoming the beneficiary of the dividends of China's early real estate industry.

In 1995, the Chang An Building developed by Fuhua International was opened, and the following year, the "Chang An Club" was opened in the Chang An Building, after which the Red Sandalwood Building was completed. These properties are located in Beijing's land and gold districts, and the asset value rises with the rise of Beijing's real estate market.

 three

In addition to taking turns as the richest man, Zhang, Yang and Wu also represent the three sources of wealth for China's richest women: self-made, women inheriting their father's business, and husband and wife starting businesses together.

In the category of female inheritance of her father's business, the most well-known is Liu Chang of New Hope Group, who became the 9th richest woman in 2006 for succeeding Liu Yonghao's family business at the age of 26. Zong Fuli is also counted as one, and she ranked 17th on last year's list with a wealth of 33 billion. In addition, Xu Yangyang of Dali Foods, Yan Xin of Sushang Group, Ruan Zeyun of Follett Glass, and Li Xue of Enjie New Materials are all post-80s female heirs.

Also according to data from the Hurun Research Institute last year, self-made female entrepreneurs accounted for 60% of the list. For example, Wang Laichun of Luxshare Precision, Zhao Yan of Huaxi Biotechnology, and Lu Yiwen of DR Diamond Ring are among them.

Top 20 list of "2022 Hurun Female Entrepreneur List"

In addition, the relationship between marriage and wealth has always been an inescapable topic, such as Zhong Huijuan of Hengrui Pharmaceutical, Fan Hongwei of Hengli Group, Ma Dongmin of Baidu, Zhang Xin of SOHO China... These rich women, who appear on the list all year round, have broken new ground with their husbands.

There is also an unavoidable topic, the big change on the list of female rich. In the past 17 years, it is not uncommon for wealthy women to disappear from the list. For example, Li Binlan, the founder of Xinyijia, who ranked 6th on the list in 2006, opened more than 70 chain stores across the country, covering 15 provinces. Li Binlan's personal wealth reached 3.5 billion yuan. However, with the emergence of e-commerce platforms around 2010, traditional retail encountered bottlenecks, Xinyijia encountered a large-scale "store closure wave", and finally the capital chain was broken, and bankruptcy liquidation was announced in 2017.

Li Binlan's experience is a typical example of a business model that has not kept up with the tide of the times. There are many female entrepreneurs whose fate is similar to her, such as He Qiaonu, the founder of Oriental Garden, and Yao Juan, the founder of Fuji Food.

As for the female rich in the real estate industry, the future is even more uncertain. Country Garden's current predicament is well known, reflected in the list, Yang Huiyan's wealth shrank by 110 billion yuan last year. Wu Yajun, the retired head of Longfor Real Estate, lost 23 percent of his fortune last year.

Through the list, it can also be found that the consumer industry should be regarded as a new territory for incubating female rich, Zhao Yan of Huaxi Biotechnology, Li Haiyan of Haidilao, Pan Dong of Blue Moon, and Zhang Xiaojuan of Yuantong Express are all from this field.

The energy industry's ability to create wealth is also obvious to all, JA Technology's Fan Caiping and Jin Junmiao's mother and daughter, Tongwei Co.'s Guan Yamei, and ENN Energy Zhao Baoju are all gaining momentum on the list.

It can only be said that the reason why female rich people have become female rich people, in addition to working hard to start a business, also reflects the direction of China's economic structure development to a certain extent. Behind their wealth explosion effect is a feast of the times and a great migration of wealth pricing standards.

*Title image purchased from Visual China