Recently, it was officially declared that Dalian Wanda Group’s Wang Jianlin is the richest man in China with a net worth of $22 billion. Jianlin has nearly doubled his wealth since 2012 when he was worth $10.3 billion. Jianlin surpassed Zong Qinghou who was earlier the richest man with a total worth of $18.7 billion. Just a decade ago China did not have any billionaires, but the boom in the country’s property market has resulted in the mushrooming of number of Chinese billionaires. The number of Chinese billionaires presently stands at 315.
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Nearly 20% percent of the billionaires in China have made their fortunes in real estate. In fact, real estate has even left behind manufacturing, which for many years was China’s mainstay. Jianlin on his part has also branched out into a number of other fields. His company recently bought British yacht maker Sunseeker for $1.6 billion. It would possibly interest you to know that Sunseeker is the very company that designs yacht for James Bond films.
Jianlin’s company has also branched into entertainment. In other words, the Dalian Wanda Group purchased AMC Entertainment Holdings for 2.6 billion. It seems like Jianlin is trying to emulate Richard Branson, by diversifying into various sectors. While commenting on Jianlin’s business strategy Kenny Wu a financial analyst from Hong Kong was quoted as saying: “Wanda leads Chinese enterprises in expanding its business globally and catering to consumers’ demand at home with some high-profile acquisitions”. He further added “Wang’s move to diversify from Chinese real estate seems rewarding”
From the looks of it one must concede that Jianlin has played his cards perfectly and in the time to come it wouldn’t surprising if he manages to make into the top 5 list of billionaires in the world. Interestingly, Jianlin was in the Chinese army when he young and was even the member of the politburo. It is ironical that despite being a communist the ideologies of which are completely opposite to that of capitalism, Jianlin has managed to make it where he is today. In 1992 Jianlin joined a failing residential developer affiliate as the general manager and soon took over the company. In the following years he built a number of shopping centers, cinemas, offices and department stores.
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The time he picked was perfect as China was rapidly growing and Jianlin really made the most of it. Presently, besides his other businesses Jianlin owns 40 five star hotels and in the next two years he plan to double that number.
