Chinese Auto Entrepreneurs

Published on Author Juan

China’s auto industry looks like its truly booming. The three decade growth that positioned China as the second largest economy and the world largest automobile market seems to be paying off. Forbes has completed its 2013 list of the World´s richest individuals. In the list we can see how Chinese top auto executives are rapidly climbing up this exclusive list full of billionaires. The wealthiest 3 Chinese auto entrepreneurs are:

1. Wei Jianjun, the chairman of Great Wall Motors is in the 229th position with $5.3 Billion.
Great Wall Motors is one of China’s largest non-government owned auto company that has doubled in value this past year.

2. Sun Guangxin, chairman of Xingjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group is in the 329th position with $4 Billion.
Xingjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group, he own around 400 auto shops spread through 18 different provinces.

3. Lu Guanqiu, chairman of Wanxiang Group in the 437th position with $3.1 Billion.
His company focuses in auto parts and machinery manufacturing.

 

 

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2013/03/04/2013-forbes-billionaires-list-chinas-billionaire-auto-enterpreneurs/

2 Responses to Chinese Auto Entrepreneurs

  1. So $5 billion doesn’t even put a Chinese billionaire into the top 200? It’s interesting though that only one of them owns an assembler, and that one is primarily of commercial vehicles. Furthermore, the article doesn’t mention where they made their money, such as whether it was real estate or the auto industry itself.

    Nevertheless, Great Wall is (from my reading) relatively successful as a truck maker (the leading one?) while there are lots of niches in car parts and in retailing and/or repair, both of which are in part real estate ploys. In contrast, SAIC (of our Michael Dunne book on GM in Shanghai) is a state-owned (here, Shanghai-owned) enterprise, not a private enterprise. Ditto all the big joint venture players, who dominate passenger cars. There are hopeful players such as BYD, Chery, and Geely (which owns Volvo) that are private, but perhaps they either aren’t publicly traded or have low valuations.

    Finally, I’d be curious to know more of Great Wall. Do they have foreign venture partners? I know (from the supplier of the year competition that I judge) that Great Wall works with global suppliers to bring new technology to market. So even if they themselves aren’t in a joint venture, they’re learning how to leverage the skills of suppliers. Which, by the way, is what similar players do elsewhere in the world — unlike in the passenger car world, not all truck assemblers make their own axles, suspensions, transmissions and diesel engines, which are the critical components.