China's Richest, Thanks To An IPO And Dad

Faces In The News
China's Richest, Thanks To An IPO And Dad
Vivian Wai-yin Kwok, 04.24.07, 2:58 AM ET

HONG KONG -

It sounds like a fairy tale. Yang Huiyan, a 25-year-old woman, has virtually overnight become the richest person in China, with a net worth of nearly $9 billion.

Yang owes her great fortune to the initial public offering of Country Garden Holdings, a real estate developer run by her father that posted sharp gains after debuting on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week.

Shares of Guangdong-based Country Garden surged 35.1% from the issue price of 5.38 Hong Kong dollars (69 cents) to 7.27 Hong Kong dollars (93 cents) on Friday, following strong demand from institutional and retail investors. The shares slipped a modest 5 Hong Kong cents (1 cent), to 7.22 dollars (92 cents) on Monday.

Having raised $1.7 billion in the initial public offering in Hong Kong, Country Garden is now the biggest developer in China, with a market value of about $15 billion.

Yang's wealth puts her far ahead of Yan Cheung, chairwoman of Nine Dragons Paper, as China's richest person. Forbes estimated Cheung's wealth at $2.4 billion when our billionaires list appeared in March. Yang would also have ranked as the world's second-youngest billionaire, behind Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis of Germany, and she would be the youngest woman on the list.

Country Garden was co-founded by Yang's father, Yeung Kwok Keung. Her enviable financial position has more to do with his accomplishments than hers.

Yang holds a degree in marketing and logistics from Ohio State University. She joined the family business in 2005; that year, her father transferred his shares in the business to her, with the intention of grooming his daughter as his successor. According to Country Garden's offering prospectus, Yang currently is an executive director of the company, overseeing procurement, enterprise resources management and development strategies.

In a statement on April 10, Country Garden said that Yang’s ownership interest is not bound by a trust or any other arrangement with her father or other family members, and she has the freedom to manage her assets as she sees fit.

Yang Erzhu, another of the five founders of Country Garden, has also joined the ranks of China's billionaires, thanks to the IPO. He reportedly comes from the same village as Yeung. His 10.2% stake is worth about $1.5 billion.

The wealth of Yeung and Yang was hard to track in advance of the Country Garden offering. The co-founders had shunned the media, and, until a corporate reorganization last year, their investments were spread across more than 30 entities, including real estate development companies, a theme park, hotels, a decoration business and a management concern.
People in Guangdong Province are familiar with Country Garden, which sold its first project -- Bi Gui Yuan -- in 1997 in Shunde, a city on the outskirts of provincial capital Guangzhou and one of China’s richest urban areas. Over 10 years, the group has accumulated about 19 million square meters (7.3 square miles) of land reserves by the end of January.

Nonetheless, Yeung had managed to maintain the lowest of low profiles until he showed up in public for a road show in support of the IPO last month.

The 52-year-old Yeung was born in an impoverished village in Shunde, reportedly never wearing new clothes before he was 17. He earned a living by raising cattle and growing crops before becoming a bricklayer and contractor, according to the Hong Kong Economic Times.

In 1992, Yeung and several partners built 4,000 houses in a Shunde development. Hit by a real estate tax implemented to cool down rising property prices the next year, Yeung had a hard time in selling the properties. To solve the crises, he built an international school inside the villa that eventually attracted affluent Guangzhou residents to the houses.

Yeung has a good relationship with the local government and is currently a member of the Standing Committee of the People’s Political Consultative Conference in Foshan, one of the largest cities in Guangdong Province.