The low-key female richest woman Yang Huiyan, Country Garden husband and wife file "charity + investment" to support the new blue sky | IIR

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Text | Anne Zijun

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Tesla climbed to the top of the trillion club, musk finally became the world's richest man far ahead; the richest people in the country also took turns to sit, but men were always in the center of the business stage.

There are fewer richest women, and even fewer richest women in succession status. Among them are heirs, innovators, and rebels. On October 27, the "Hurun Research Institute" released the "2021 Hurun Rich List", Yang Huiyan's name became the first "main" woman in the richest list, and this year, at the age of 40, with a net worth of 185 billion yuan, she once again won the crown of "China's richest woman".

Yang Guoqiang has three daughters, and the eldest daughter has been ill since childhood, so Yang Guoqiang put the cultivation of successors on Yang Huiyan and his sister. In 2005, 23-year-old Yang Huiyan returned to China after graduating from abroad, starting from the purchasing department of Country Garden, and in December 2006, she was promoted to a director of the group and officially held a wedding with her husband Chen Chong.

In 2007, when Country Garden went public in Hong Kong, her father had transferred the equity to his name, and the 25-year-old Yang Huiyan became the youngest female richest woman in China.

But the name of "China's richest woman", Yang Huiyan does not particularly care. She often said that her original dream was to become a teacher, and the middle school she attended as a child was the Guangdong Country Garden School founded when her father's career was small. But her father carefully cultivated and hoped that Yang Huiyan would take over the baton of Country Garden, and she had to hide her dream and help Chinese education in another way.

In 2002, Yang Huiyan asked her father to invest 260 million yuan to build a school for outstanding students in poor areas; in 2017, Yang Huiyan invested 100 million yuan to set up an education assistance fund named after him; in 2018, Yang Huiyan donated 80 million yuan to Beijing Normal University to help with teaching, and together with her father and husband, donated 2.2 billion yuan to Tsinghua University, which was also the largest donation in the history of Chinese universities at that time.

If it is only a woman who inherits her father's business and becomes the richest woman, everyone may not be surprised, but Yang Huiyan has achieved a grand slam of love and career, and the husband and wife are envious of others, and they also carry the mission of their own real estate industry innovation.

Yang Huiyan's husband, Chen Chong, was born in Harbin, 3 years older than Yang Huiyan, and graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree. He initially joined Country Garden Services, also from the grassroots level, and later joined the investment department and participated in the listing of Country Garden. Nowadays, Chen Chong is already a strong investor, he is also the chairman of the Guoqiang Public Welfare Foundation, the director of the board of directors of Country Garden, and is enthusiastic about various public welfare undertakings. As of now, incomplete statistics, the cumulative donation of Yang Huiyan's family has reached about 6 billion yuan.

In December 2018, Country Garden announced that Yang Huiyan had been transferred from the company's vice chairman to co-chairman and would be responsible for assisting Yang Guoqiang in handling the daily work of the Group, as well as responsible for the group's strategic investment and new business exploration. Since 2018, Country Garden has begun to expand its territory, set up Country Garden Venture Capital, invested in hard technology, entered the smart catering, and continued to increase robots, etc. "not doing business" seems to have become synonymous with this previous traditional real estate developer.

In January 2019, Country Garden Venture Capital was officially established, and in the past two years, the primary market has entered a cold winter period, but the industrial capital of traditional industries represented by Country Garden Venture Capital has come to the forefront, looking for high-quality investment targets in the new economy and mergers and acquisition opportunities in the industrial chain.

Less than 3 years after its establishment, Country Garden Venture Capital has invested in more than 50 companies, 8 of which have successfully IPO, including Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, BYD Semiconductor, Shenghe Jingwei, Hive Energy, Blue Arrow Aerospace, New Ruipeng Pet Medical and many other companies.

In addition, as an investment institution with a real estate background, Country Garden Venture Capital has also run wild on the new consumption track, tea, oral, skin care products, catering, and extended its tentacles in many fields, such as the investment bag tea brand "Chali", the oral care brand "Ice Spring", the domestic herbal skin care brand "Lin Qingxuan", the investment meets the small noodles, Wen Heyou, etc.

In addition to the external cross-industry layout, Country Garden's expansion and extension of existing business is also the focus.

Since its listing in 2018, Hong Kong Country Garden Service has not stopped the pace of mergers and acquisitions. In the first year of listing, it acquired the equity of Five companies including Chengdu Jiaxiang Property for 683 million yuan; in 2019, it acquired 100% of the equity of Jia Kai City Property and Ganglian Real Estate Services for 190 million yuan and 375 million yuan respectively; in 2020, it acquired the equity of Fujian Dongfei (60%), Manguo Kangjie (70%), and Chengheng (100%) for 375 million yuan, 2.45 billion yuan and 1.512 billion yuan respectively; on September 20 and 28 this year, Country Garden Service issued an announcement. It is proposed to acquire the core assets of Furano Global, a subsidiary of R&F Property, and Color Life Service Property, at a price not exceeding RMB10 billion and RMB3.3 billion.

Today's real estate market is facing a deep adjustment, and many companies are facing crises and even bankruptcies in this storm; but as of today, Country Garden's market value is still more than HK$160 billion. Yang Huiyan and her husband and wife use a new perspective that is both pragmatic and long-term, and look for new vitality through endogenous + extension methods such as business transformation management, public welfare charity, and CVC investment.