Liu Yongxing (Chinese: 刘永行, born June 1948) is a Chinese businessman. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of East Hope Group, a Chinese company active in the agribusiness as well as chemical and non-ferrous metal industries. He is the honorary president of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in Sichuan, a part-time professor at China Agricultural University, MBA lecturer, and a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC.
Liu’s wealth is derived from East Hope Group, a closely held conglomerate. The Shanghai-based company is owned by Liu, his wife and his daughter. Liu is credited with full ownership in the net worth analysis to reflect his status as chairman. The Shanghai-based group has about 30,000 employees and is involved in aluminum production, energy, agriculture, chemicals and real estate, according to the company’s website.
The group had revenue of 184 billion yuan ($28.6 billion) in 2021, according a top 500 ranking by All China Federation of Industry and Commerce. Revenue for the aluminium and cement businesses has been estimated based on the ranking and financials from a 2017 bond filing by East Hope Enterprise Management, the parent of East Hope Group.
The aluminium unit is valued using reported financial results and the average enterprise value-to-Ebit and enterprise value-to-sales multiples of five publicly traded peers: Aluminum Corp of China Ltd, Sunstone Development Co Ltd, Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co, Norsk Hydro ASA and Kaiser Aluminum Corp.
The cement business is valued using the average price-to-earnings, enterprise-value-to-sales and enterprise-value-to-EBIT multiple of five publicly traded peers: Gansu Qilianshan Cement Group, Guangdong Tapai Group, West China Cement, Ningxia Building Materials Group Co and Anhui Conch Cement Co.
The financials used in the calculation were updated on Dec. 13, 2022 and this led to an increase in the valuation of almost $5 billion.
The other East Hope Group businesses are valued at one-times sales based on information in the top 500 ranking and 2017 bond filing. East Hope Group’s materials and animal feed divisions were previously included here as separate assets. The methodology was changed to better reflect the bond filing.
A company spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, said the company declined to comment on the net worth calculation.
Biography
In 1980, Yongxing Liu was a 32-year-old factory worker and mathematics student at a teacher’s college in the southwestern China city of Chengdu. He and his wife had savings of about $30, which was to be used for his tuition. Tradition in China dictates that families should gather for elaborate holiday feasts before the Chinese New Year festival in the spring. All Liu could afford that year was an 8-pound goose, which he gave to his 4-year-old son, Xiangyu, to hold. Xiangyu was so excited that he accidentally let the goose escape, and with it, the main course for the family’s holiday dinner.
Dismayed and disgraced, Liu set-up a street stand to make money by repairing radios to buy meat for his son. He earned about $50 in the first week, almost a year’s pay from his factory job. The experience impressed upon him the notion that as long as he worked hard, he would be able to get out of poverty, Liu said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald in 2010.
Two years later, Yongxing quit his job and joined his three brothers — Yongyan, Yongmei and Yonghao — raising and selling quail. They sold their watches and bicycles, and pooled $500 in start-up capital. A decade after China embarked on economic reforms under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the brothers founded Hope Group in 1991 and turned it to one of the biggest animal feed makers in the country.
The brothers split the business in 1995, with Yongxing taking East Hope Group, which diversified into aluminum production in 2002. East Hope is now headquartered in Shanghai, where it moved from Chengdu in 1999.
Milestones
- 1948 Liu is born to a rural family in Xinjin, in China’s Sichuan province.
- 1980 Graduates from Chengdu Teachers College in capital city of Sichuan.
- 1982 Starts quail breeding business with his three brothers in Sichuan.
- 1991 Brothers turn quail breeding farm into pig feed maker Hope Group.
- 1995 Liu founds East Hope after brothers split Hope Group into four companies.
- 1999 Relocates company headquarters to Shanghai from Chengdu.
- 2002 Company starts an aluminum manufacturing business in China.
- 2014 Joins eight China tycoons to meet with Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing.
Personal life
Liu Yongxing was born in Sichuan, China, and has three brothers, Liu Yongyan (刘永言), Chen Yuxin (陈育新) and Liu Yonghao (刘永好), as well as one sister, Liu Yonghong (刘永红). They started out as farm workers in low social standing due to their family background as wealthy landlords before the Cultural Revolution.
He graduated from Xihua University in 1968.
Liu’s wife is a psychologist by training, with whom he has one child.[7][8] He resides in Shanghai.
Career
n the late 1970s, Liu Yongxing and his brothers founded an electronics company that had to close soon after, as such business ventures were regarded as “too capitalistic” at the time.
In 1982, Liu YongXing and his three brothers, accumulated 1,000 RMB and started a company called the “Hope Group.” The business consisted of raising quail and hatching chickens in the Sichuan Province. They also established the Hope Research Center for animal feeds in 1986
In 1995, Hope Group was split up into four separate companies among the siblings: West Hope Group (Chen Yuxin), New Hope Group (Liu Yonghai) and Continental Hope Group (Liu Yongyan). Liu Yongxing retained parts of the agricultural business and got involved in the heavy chemical and aluminium industry, which ultimately led to the founding of today’s East Hope Group in 1995, one of the largest aluminium producers worldwide.
In 1999, Liu Yongxing relocated his East Hope HQ to Shanghai, China.
In 2002, Liu Yongxing started his business in the Aluminum industry.
In August 2016, Chinese news site Sohu published a profile covering Liu Yongxing and his approach to conducting business. Concerning criticism about environmental pollution caused by East Hope factories, the article quotes Liu as saying that “in the heavy chemical industry, environmental issues are a common risk, so I do everything in accordance with the most stringent standards.” Nevertheless, East Hope Group has been penalized multiple times for violating environmental regulations that included fines, forced production cuts and technical upgrades. For example, punishments were handed out in 2014, 2015 and 2016 for exceeding SO2, NOx and dust emission caps of the Group’s plants in Shandong, Xinjiang, Henan and Inner Mongolia.
In 2015, East Hope’s Baotou plant received 4.2 billion yuan in funds to incentivize upgrading its environmental protection facilities, while at the same time, a new kiln for solid waste disposal at one of the company’s cement factories was regarded as innovative by Chinese authorities, according to East Hope sources.
On 15 December 2016, two people were killed when a red mud reservoir at East Hope’s Sanmenxia plant failed. Four months prior to the accident, amid another red mud spill incident in the province, the local government conducted safety inspections at East Hope facilities and approved their full compliance with the standards. Thus far, there are no reports that the company has faced repercussions for the accident.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Liu Yongxing was rewarded with the “2001 CCTV Top 10 China’s Economic Leaders” award, as well as with the “Sohu 2001 Top 10 Financial Leaders” award.
Wealth
Liu Yongxing is regarded among the richest people in China. He was ranked #18 on Forbes’ China Rich List with a net worth of $6.6 billion, which also makes him the richest Shanghai resident. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index ranked him at #93 globally with $12.3 billion. His brothers are also billionaires and owners of their own companies.
