Preface
In the past few decades, he has made one contribution after another to the mainland, once for China, he would rather disrupt the market, and buy 300,000 tons of white sugar for China without telling the world.
Even the "China International Trade Center" in Beijing, the mainland, was built with his funds, and he donated a huge amount of money to the mainland's educational cause.
However, such a person is as old as 100 years old but has not yet retired, and the company has not yet decided on an heir.
When it comes to the mainland's richest people, many people first think of Li Ka-shing, Zhong Sui, Ma Yun, etc., but many people have never heard of Guo Henian.
Teenager Guo Henian
Compared with these people, Guo Henian is very low-key, rarely appears in the social media, now he is 100 years old, the goods produced by his company are closely related to the livelihood of the mainland, and his business experience starts with his father.
Guo Henian's father, Guo Qinjian, came to Malaysia at a very young age in order to make a better life.
Guo Qinjian was very clever in business, and when his fourth brother was seriously ill, the company specializing in rice, soybeans and sugar was handed over to Guo Qinjian to manage.
Although these businesses gradually rose in his hands, they did not make the business very large, so to speak, a relatively large commercial peddler.
In 1920, Guo Qinjian and his wife Zheng Geru were married, and three years later, their third child, Guo Henian, was born.
When he was a child, he studied in Malaysia and went to Singapore until university, and after graduation, he started working.
Start a business and forge a business empire
Initially, Guo Henian was helping out in his father's company, and during this time, he gradually came up with the idea of starting a business.
It is good to have this idea, Guo Henian's father also supported him very much, and specially prepared some funds for him, with which Guo Henian came to the place where he went to college.
In Singapore, Guo Henian founded his first company, but the economic situation at that time was not very good, and his company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
In 1948, when his father died suddenly, and the company left behind by his father was unmanaged, Kwok returned to Malaysia to manage his family business.
It was at this time that Guo Henian made the company left by his father bigger and stronger, and he just took over for a year, and he integrated the company in all aspects.
In addition, the company has also expanded its business to Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, and at this time the company is still engaged in the sale of livelihood products such as rice noodles and soybeans.
Originally, the business was doing well, but it seemed that it was gradually improving, but I never thought that in 1952, a war broke out in Malaysia, which also affected Guo Henian's business.
Looking at the deteriorating performance, Guo Henian knew in his heart that if he kept doing this, the company would soon go bankrupt, so he made a major decision.
Transform your business and build the foundation for your business empire
That is, all the money left in the enterprise began to invest in the sugar refining industry, but at this time, one problem after another surfaced.
Although it is said that since Guo Henian's father, the family has long started the white sugar business, but for so many years, their white sugar has been buying and selling, and they don't understand sugar refining at all.
To this end, Guo Henian also did a special investigation, sugar is a country's foothold, but also a strategic material, Malaysia has just become independent, the domestic sugar industry is very empty, has a good development prospects.
In addition, Guo Henian also went to the United Kingdom to conduct in-depth investigation and research on the sugar industry, and learned the trade knowledge and sales of white sugar.
With this experience, in 1959, Kwok founded a sugar factory, which was also the first in Malaysia, and quickly sold all over Malaysia.
Since then, Guo Henian's company's sales have increased year by year, and in just over ten years, his sugar factory has controlled 10% of the world's sugar, and in the Malaysian market, it can account for 80%!
Don't forget the original intention and return to the motherland
Not only that, Guo Henian founded a number of large companies in the following ten years, among them, the most famous is the "Shangri-La Hotel", and even the "Arowana oil" that mainland people often eat is from his company.
At that time, the mainland was reforming and opening up, and in order to develop, many methods were exhausted to attract foreign investment, and in 1984, the capital Beijing planned to build an international trade center.
However, at that time, the mainland was not very wealthy, so the bid was sent out, but after a long time, there was no response.
Businessmen in Hong Kong and in China are afraid that they will lose all their money invested here, and foreign businessmen want to take advantage of this opportunity to squeeze the mainland.
At this moment, Guo Henian stood up and expressed his willingness to invest in the construction of the International Trade Center, and invested 530 million US dollars at once, which was an astronomical amount at that time.
In 1973, the leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the mainland approached Guo Henian and told him about the current situation of people's livelihood in the mainland.
At that time, the mainland was very short of sugar, and hoped to buy 300,000 tons of raw sugar from Guo Henian to alleviate the domestic crisis, but Guo Henian didn't even think about agreeing directly.
Although Guo Henian is a sugar maker, taking out so much raw sugar in one go is still a big test for him, and he even needs to buy it from other companies to get it together.
If you want to buy so much sugar publicly, it will make the international sugar price rise, and then it will be bad news for Guo Henian and the mainland.
This also means that Guo Henian must secretly buy sugar, but with so many pairs of eyes staring at him, how can he hide from the world?
It turned out that three weeks later, an international conference on the sugar industry would be held, and Guo Henian went to this conference and successfully attracted everyone's attention.
At the same time, he also sent people to Brazil to buy sugar, and successfully completed the purchase of 300,000 tons of sugar, and handed over all the sugar to China.
When the international community found out that someone had bought so much sugar, the futures market immediately skyrocketed, and Guo Henian had already bought futures before buying this sugar.
When it reached its peak, Guo Henian immediately threw out the futures, made $5 million in one go, and handed it over to China along with the sugar.
It can be said that Guo Henian loves China very much and has helped China again and again, and even Deng Gong specially met with him in 1990, which was also the last time Deng Gong met with the country abroad.
Succession of family business has become a problem
Now, according to the wealth value announced by Forbes in 2023, Guo Henian is sitting on hundreds of billions of assets, and on October 6 this year, Guo Henian will also usher in his 101st birthday.
But to this day, he still has not retired, he is still fighting for the company, although Guo Henian has 8 children, but still has not decided who is the heir of this large enterprise.
In fact, at first, many people thought that his eldest son Guo Kongcheng was the best heir, but his girlfriend
, which dealt a big blow to Guo Kongcheng, which made him collapse.
As for the other children, only Guo Huiguang is the leader of Shangri-La, and the rest of Guo Henian thinks they are not capable enough.
Even among Guo Henian's children, there was infighting, so the hundred-year-old Guo Henian did not retire for a long time, he did not want to retire, but could not find an heir.
Some netizens believe that probably the most suitable heir for Guo Henian is his nephew Guo Kongfeng, because whether it is his ability or experience, he is much higher than his children.
In addition, Guo Kongfeng also serves as the chairman of Arowana Oil Company, and has also made many contributions to China, and is the person who can inherit the mantle of Guo Henian.
Resources
Main source: The original article was published in Fujian Business Observer on March 01, 2023 about the report "Legend! This Fuzhou boss actually became one of the "ten richest people in Asia" by selling sugar and was received by Deng Xiaoping!".
Main source: This article was originally published in Sina News Center on June 6, 2018 on "From a small grocery store owner to Asia's "sugar king", this Chinese is not ordinary!".
Main source: The original article was published on CCTV on December 12, 2012 on the report of "[China's Economic Person of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award] Guo Henian".