After dropping out of school at the age of 15 to drive a tractor and now worth 68 billion yuan, what are his ways to succeed?

Lee Hyun Yee

Wen | Feng Ma Niu (WeChat public number: Feng Lun Feng Ma Niu)

Speaking of the "Glass King", everyone will first think of Cao Dewang, the helmsman of Fuyao Group, but in fact, Fujian has also produced a very cattle "Glass King", whose strength is no less than Cao Dewang, that is, Li Xianyi, the founder of Xinyi Group.

In the 1980s, Li Xianyi founded Xinyi Group in Shenzhen, which has grown from a nine-person production of automotive glass to a leading global integrated glass manufacturer with four listed companies. The development and growth of the enterprise has also made Li Xianyi's wealth soar, and he was shortlisted for the "2021 Hurun Global Rich List" with a net worth of 68 billion yuan.

Some insiders once commented on Li Xianyi: He is not good at rhetoric and rarely speaks, but he believes in honesty and righteousness the most. Perhaps it was through honesty and righteousness that Li Xianyi achieved his "glass kingdom".

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Born in 1952 to a rural family in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, Li Xianyi was forced to drop out of school at the age of 15 and had no chance of formal higher education because his family was so poor. Many years later, in an interview, Li Xianyi said: Until now, I have regrets, so I pay special attention to those children who have lost their reading opportunities due to family poverty. It is imperative to grasp education; it is indispensable to help education. If the country wants to develop and the nation wants to rejuvenate, it must put education in the highest priority position.

After dropping out of school, Li Xianyi had been driving a tractor in his hometown at first, earning hard money. In the 1970s, Li Xianyi, who had a little savings, wanted to make his career bigger, so he found a total of 9 relatives and friends, and together formed the Ziying Motorcade of Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, and began to run transportation. Due to his work, Li Xianyi often travels back and forth between "Fujian and Shenzhen".

In 1982, Hong Kong was in the take-off stage, seeing that many of his compatriots went there to break in and make money, Li Xianyi could not help but run to pan for gold, he single-handedly opened a small auto parts repair shop in Hong Kong, and the business was very prosperous.

However, by 1983, the wind direction changed again, and Li Xianyi found that the Hong Kong bosses around him had begun to cross the Xiangjiang River to Shenzhen to invest and build factories. At that time, the spring breeze of reform and opening up had been blown in Shenzhen, where entrepreneurship could enjoy various policy dividend support. Weighing the pros and cons, Li Xianyi chose to come to Shenzhen to develop, although Shenzhen was still a border town at that time, he believed that Shenzhen had all the advantages of starting a business, compared with Hong Kong, the prospects are vast.

After coming to Shenzhen, Li Xianyi returned to his old bank, opened an auto parts maintenance company, and gradually became an automobile integrated service company because the business was getting better and better. At the same time as doing business, Li Xianyi, who had a sharp mind, found that there were no enterprises that did automotive glass in Shenzhen at that time, and they all bought imported automotive glass. So in 1988, Li Xianyi and the original team of the "Ziying Team" pooled their money to set up Xinyi Group in Shenzhen, mainly producing automotive glass. Li Xianyi once said: The reason for deciding to produce automotive glass at that time was very simple, that is, I hoped that we could produce automotive glass ourselves, changing the situation that we had to import from Japan, Taiwan and other places in the past.

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When Xinyi Group was first founded, Li Xianyi established the core corporate values of "credibility first, righteousness and prosperity, self-improvement and kindness to the world". Dream of creating an outstanding glass enterprise, the achievement of world-class brand.

At the beginning of the business, Li Xianyi felt very difficult. At that time, there were only a few dozen employees, working and eating and living in the factory, staying up late every day to work overtime. At that time, everyone had no experience in making car glass, Li Xianyi bought a Taiwanese machine, the other side would send technicians to guide, and everyone learned from scratch. After the product came out, the sales were also very difficult, Li Xianyi did not know where to find local big customers, so he made two or three hundred billboards on the side of the road, thus opening up sales.

After the business improved, Li Xianyi began to buy more advanced machines from Europe, the United States and Japan on the one hand, and sent employees to study abroad. On the other hand, he ran to Hong Kong to advertise and explore overseas markets.

Due to the factors of good quality, low price, good service and credibility, Xinyi Group has gradually reached cooperation with many international famous automobile manufacturers. By 2001, more than 70% of the automotive glass produced by Xinyi had been exported.

However, the development and growth of the enterprise has also brought many troubles to Li Xianyi. Xinyi Glass's "small profits and high sales" have become the hunting object of foreigners' "anti-dumping".

On February 28, 2001, the relevant parties in the United States decided to impose a tariff of 3% to 124% on the windshield of Automobiles exported from China from April 2002 on the grounds of dumping by Chinese enterprises, involving 14 Chinese automobile front windshield manufacturers, including Xinyi Group.

"If you shouldn't sue, you should give up voluntarily!" In the face of the crisis, Li Xianyi decided to fight to the end. Since then, Xinyi Group has been pulled into a protracted lawsuit.

However, a wave of uneven waves arose again, on December 18, 2001, it was xinyi group to respond to the anti-dumping investigation in the United States, and received a notice of anti-dumping investigation in Canada, under the guidance of the relevant national authorities, Li Xianyi led the company's management to actively respond to the lawsuit again.

Fortunately, time lived up to all efforts, and in the end, two international "battles" were won, and Xinyi was victorious. These two anti-dumping cases not only did not affect the development of the company, but also made Xinyi Group famous abroad in one fell swoop. Li Xianyi said: Re-faith and righteousness, and acting in accordance with market laws and WTO rules are the most powerful weapons in our market competition.

Since then, Li Xianyi has led the company to expand from a single automotive glass industry to a number of tracks such as integrated glass, photovoltaic power generation, energy storage, and real estate. At present, Xinyi Group has four listed companies: Xinyi Glass, Xinyi Solar Energy, Xinyi Energy and Xinyi Power Storage. According to the official website, Xinyi Glass is the world's leading integrated glass manufacturer, committed to the production of high-quality float glass, automotive glass, energy-saving architectural glass and other products, sales network throughout the world more than 130 countries and regions; Xinyi Solar is the world's largest manufacturer of solar photovoltaic glass; Xinyi Energy is China's leading solar power station operator.

In an interview, Li Xianyi once said: The transformation and upgrading of enterprises is a good thing, and the most important thing is to "stabilize" the word. My point of view is that we must seek stability and upgrades with less risk, and we cannot upgrade for the sake of upgrading. In order to upgrade, some enterprises can control the risk or not, and "borrow money indiscriminately" without certainty, and 8 of the 10 such enterprises will go out of business. My advice is to be familiar with your own industry and familiar with what to do. I've been making glass for so many years, and you want me to make a computer, and I can't do it.

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"The development of enterprises is inseparable from the support of the social environment, and I have always believed that enterprises and entrepreneurs should give back to the society." I believe that to help others is to help oneself, and if everyone can do what they can for others, then society will naturally become better."

Li Xianyi is not only an excellent entrepreneur, but also a philanthropist. Under his leadership, in the past 40 years of development, Xinyi Group has donated more than 1 billion yuan to the country's charity and public welfare, cultural transportation, poverty alleviation, education and health, environmental protection and disaster relief, and see the righteous courage for the cause, becoming one of the enterprises with the longest enthusiasm and adherence to charity and public welfare in China.

Of course, Li Xianyi is not only enthusiastic about public welfare and charity, but also pays attention to people-oriented, respects talents and cultivates talents. Xinyi Group has always gathered and retained talents in good faith, and sought the common development of enterprises and employees. Li Xianyi once said: We must care for and treat employees well, so that employees will do their jobs well. You are good to your employees, and your employees are good to you. Our staff is relatively stable.

Regarding the advice for young entrepreneurs, in an interview, Li Xianyi once summed up the following points: First, be diligent; second, be honest and don't think that you have deceived others; third, you must have a sense of responsibility, and you must be responsible for doing things to the end.

Sources

1. Xinyi Glass Holdings Limited official website

2. Li Xianyi: Xianxing Righteous Deeds to Help the People, CPPCC Tiandi, Lu Junjie

3. Enthusiastic public welfare, kind to the world- Visiting Li Xianyi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the board of directors of Xinyi Group (Glass) Co., Ltd., economy, Wenli Zhou Zetian

4. Li Xianyi, "Glass King" is keen on charity, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily, Zhang Rui

5. Manufacturing industry transformation and upgrading should be "stable" word to the head, Shenzhen Business Daily, Peng Yan

6. Oral History of Shenzhen | Li Xianyi: Growing and developing with great cities, Tang Wenjun

7. The Glass Heart of the "Glass King"——Sang Zi Qing of Hong Kong Businessman Li Xianyi, Fujian Daily

8. Cao Dewang's strongest opponent: dropped out of school at the age of 15, with an annual net profit of more than 3.2 billion yuan, and established the world's third largest "glass kingdom", business, Yang Daxia

9. Li Xianyi: Building a "Glass Kingdom", Southeast Morning Post, Guo Huaping

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The author of this article | Dajun Editor-in-Chief| Wang Tao

Editor| Chen Runjiang Consultant | Wang Shuqi