The richest woman in China, it’s a replacement!
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Longfor Group Wu Yajun , quietly retreated from the throne of "the richest woman".
replaced it with a wealthy woman in Jiangsu with a net worth of RMB 64.4 billion.
The new richest man started from scratch, "from a drop of oil to a piece of cloth", and worked with his husband to create a business empire with an annual turnover of 732.3 billion yuan.
She is Fan Hongwei .
● Fan Hongwei
This is a name that makes us feel a little unfamiliar with.
What is the secret of Fan Hongwei’s success? This is a key issue for many people.
The man behind Fan Hongwei is also very curious. He is more valuable than Fan Hongwei and has long been the "backbone" of the richest woman.
01
Fan Hongwei does not conform to the image of a "strong woman" in people's minds.
In the general perception of Chinese people, a woman can have a huge wealth of tens of billions of yuan and win the title of "the richest woman". She must be the image of a powerful and powerful iron lady. The external image of
is often domineering and masculine, full of high fighting spirit and unyielding spirit, and looks "strong".
But Fan Hongwei doesn't look strong at all.
She speaks calmly and vigorously, sometimes with a simple ponytail, which is not much different from ordinary middle-level managers in the company.
● Fan Hongwei
This gentleness and calmness are important to her growth environment.
Fan Hongwei is a native Suzhou girl. Unlike many entrepreneurs from poor backgrounds, she was born in a well-off family and never lived a hard life since she was a child.
This can be seen from her education: in that era when thousands of troops crossed the single-plank bridge, she actually had a college diploma, which has surpassed many of her peers.
In 1985, Fan Hongwei found his first job: working as an accountant in a state-owned textile factory.
● Fan Hongwei
This was originally a very good job, which made many girls envious. However, a few years later, Fan Hongwei threw away this "iron rice bowl" without any nostalgia.
She grasped the pulse of the times. Suzhou's economy has reached a new turning point.
Since the late 1970s, township enterprises in southern Jiangsu have begun to rise strongly, which depends on the strong support of local governments. The township government directly intervened and organized the township people to enter various township enterprises, which not only solved the employment, but also created a large amount of considerable profits.
● In the 1980s, Wuxi suburban township enterprises
" Southern Jiangsu model " has become one of the templates for the whole country to learn.
The famous sociologist Fei Xiaotong excitedly commented: "Today in the southern Jiangsu model is tomorrow in other regions."
However, after entering the 1990s, the situation took a sharp turn.
Due to the tax reform, the financial pressure of township governments is too great, and they keep taking money from township enterprises for public utilities, and the company's development funds are seriously insufficient. In order to "get rid of the burden", many places have given up collective enterprise and started privatization reform.
Suzhou Nanma Town held a collective weaving factory, but it did not escape this disaster.
In 1994, this factory was not making enough money and was about to close.Fan Hongwei keenly realized that this was a major opportunity that must not be missed.
She and her husband took out all their savings, borrowed a lot of money, bought the factory for 3.69 million yuan, and renamed it to Wujiang Chemical Fiber Manufacturing Factory .
No one can guarantee that this factory can come back to life. If you are not careful, the couple will lose all their money and fall into the abyss.
This is a big bet!
02
The husband and wife are united and they will be able to cut off gold.
Fan Hongwei and her husband Chen Jianhua can be regarded as a pair of "Records of Condor Heroes" in the business world. They join forces and match together to write a business myth.
● Chen Jianhua
In fact, they were not favored by others when they first fell in love.
Because in that era, according to the people's concept of choosing a spouse, Chen Jianhua was a "high-rise". To put it bluntly, everyone thinks he is not worthy of Fan Hongwei.
In terms of education, Fan Hongwei graduated from a college, but Chen Jianhua didn’t even have a junior high school diploma. In terms of family conditions, Fan Hongwei’s family is at least well-off and has no worries, but Chen Jianhua’s family is so poor.
Not to mention, Fan Hongwei has a stable accounting job, while Chen Jianhua is just a small worker who makes a living on the construction site.
The "small workers" in those days were very different from the formal workers in state-owned factories. They did not have any welfare guarantees, and they did the hardest and most tiring work, and were discriminated against.
Fan Hongwei "will not marry unless you are a man" and is determined to be with Chen Jianhua.
She did not cover her eyes with the "identity tag", but saw the most rare qualities in Chen Jianhua: smart and ambitious, and daring to fight.
Fan Hongwei's seemingly weak body is hidden.
She was unwilling to be a mediocre little accountant for the rest of her life, but she also wanted to do something.
She chose Chen Jianhua, but in fact she chose a grand life.
This kind of life is full of risks and instability, but it also contains huge opportunities and gains.
Chen Jianhua is very hard-working and has a flexible mind. Suzhou's textile industry is very prosperous, and many factories urgently need raw materials such as silk, so he went to the countryside to purchase them one by one.
The raw materials he acquired won market recognition and soon made the "first pot of gold" in his life.
In the early 1990s, when "ten thousand yuan households" were already a sign of success, Chen Jianhua had already made 2 million!
Fan Hongwei trusts her husband's ability very much. She decisively quit her job as an accountant and went to help her husband do business.
The couple has a good relationship, they are in harmony with each other, and they work together to make their business bigger and bigger.
In 1994, the couple bought Nanma Town to run a collective weaving factory, treating this place as a new starting point for their career. For this reason, they have suffered a huge debt of more than 1 million yuan!
This took a lot of courage at that time because the situation was not particularly clear. Although the market economy of has begun to flourish, many businessmen are not sure whether the policy is stable.
"The current policies are like the moon, but the 1st and 15th day of the lunar month are different." This rumor circulated in the 1980s and 1990s reflects the uneasiness in the hearts of the "trend players" under the wave of the times.
Fan Hongwei and Chen Jianhua dare to think and do it. The small chemical fiber factory has become the starting point of their 700 billion wealth empire.
03
The first level they want to pass is how to achieve "no one has nothing to do".
Suzhou's textile industry is seriously "intra-rolled". If it is the same, how can we quickly seize the market? The factory must make a return as soon as possible.
You should know that the debt of more than 1 million is there, and the creditors don’t have the patience to wait too long.
Fan Hongwei made a difficult and important decision.
When the capital flow was already difficult, she persuaded her husband to take out the money to replace the existing equipment and introduce new machines.
At first, Chen Jianhua found that the old machine was too backward, but he was unsure of making a lot of money to replace it. Fan Hongwei helped him take a reassurance: Change!
● Textile workshop (data photo)
After changing to new equipment, the production efficiency has indeed increased greatly, and the output in the factory has increased suddenly.
But everyone knows that if you want to run a company well for a long time, it depends not only on equipment. The most important thing is people. How to mobilize the enthusiasm of workers?
"No debts, no external guarantees, and pay wages on time." These are the three iron laws set by Fan Hongwei.
At any time, she ensures that the company has sufficient financial reserves and will never ow workers a penny of salary.
This gives workers a sense of steadfastness and confidence: although they are in private enterprises, they are still as stable as in state-owned enterprises.
● Fan Hongwei in the workshop
In addition, she also formulated a set of advanced management systems, which effectively stimulated the enthusiasm of workers. All managers who originally rely on relationships and have bad work style will be dismissed.
With good management and advanced technology, the factory is booming. Fan Hongwei and his wife not only paid off their debts, but also gradually became the top rich man in Jiangsu.
The most commendable thing is that Fan Hongwei's awareness of being prepared for danger in times of peace played a big role in the Asian financial crisis: their companies have sufficient cash flow and have not been affected too much.
In 2003, the famous Hengli Group was established.
● Hengli Group
They were not satisfied, but began to switch to the oil industry.
When I looked at it suddenly, the turn seemed to be turning a little violently: How did I jump from the textile industry to the oil industry all at once?
04
This is mainly to solve a "bottleneck" problem.
chemical fiber industry needs to use PTA raw materials. If you want to produce chemical fiber products, you almost need to spend money to import them from abroad, and Chinese companies do not have much bargaining power at all.
people have it, but you don’t have it, how can there be room for bargaining?
Fan Hongwei and her husband learned from their mistakes and decided to break this situation.
Fortunately, after years of operation, the couple has maintained their political and business relationship very well and can speak to the government departments. After some communication, Hengli Group has the right to operate the petrochemical industry. They quickly established a PTA production base and began to enter this production field that is still a blank in the country.
Fan Hongwei, who once ran business with two legs, has now taken a private plane to negotiate various businesses.
After years of development, Hengli Group has become one of the giant enterprises in China. In 2021, Hengli Group's annual revenue reached 732.3 billion!
● Hengli Petrochemical Industrial Park
In October 2022, according to the real-time data of the Bloomberg billionaire list, Fan Hongwei became the richest female female. After
reached the top, Fan Hongwei strived to be low-key.
Fierce fire cooking oil and flowers are blooming, which is naturally good, but many people and things have changed. Hengli, which used to be abundant in funds, now borrows a lot of money, and the loan amount in the bank is amazing.
Some people say that Hengli Group may have been under the crisis.
After Fan Hongwei became the richest woman, Hengli once responded:
"Hengli is an 'old ox' type company. Compared with individuals, we pay more attention to the company's positioning in the industry and the value it brings to the industrial chain and partners."
● Fan Hongwei
No matter what, we still hope that this company will get better and better.
Compared with the glorious halo of "the richest woman", what we are more looking forward to is that private enterprises like Hengli can move forward steadily in the ocean of the real economy.
no one wants it, it repeats the mistakes of predecessors. Text/Gu Jingyan
