Wang Chuan-Fu

Wang Chuanfu (Chinese: 王传福; born 1966) is a Chinese chemist, billionaire entrepreneur, and the founder, chairman and CEO of BYD Company.

The majority of Wang’s fortune is derived from a 19% stake in BYD, a car maker that trades publicly in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He holds the shares directly and through an asset management plan, according to the company’s 2023 first-quarter report. The company employs more than 570,000 people, according to its 2022 annual report.

The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of these proceeds, as well as taxes and market performance.

According to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing dated June 18, 2015, Wang sold 25.7 million BYD shares and loaned the proceeds to employees to facilitate their share purchases. The amount he loaned to his workers is included as an asset in the net worth analysis.

Mia Gu, a spokeswoman at BYD, said the billionaire declined to comment on his net worth.

Table of Contents

Biography

Education: Central South University of Technology, Beijing Non-Ferrous Research Institute

Wang Chuan-Fu was born into a farming family in China’s Anhui province in 1966. He graduated from Central South Industrial University, now known as Central South University, with a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical physical chemistry in 1987. He received a master’s degree in materials from the Beijing General Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals, where he worked as a deputy director, according to his profile at the Boao Forum.

He worked as the general manager of Bige Battery for a year and a half before using about $400,000 that he borrowed from his cousin to found BYD as a battery maker with 20 employees in 1995. The company was making lithium-ion batteries for handsets by 1997, and later expanded to cars, joining billionaire Li Shufu’s Geely Automobile Holdings as one of country’s first non-state owned electric carmakers.

BYD began trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2002. It attracted the attention of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who purchased 225 million shares for HK$8 (about $1) each through a unit of Berkshire Hathaway six years later. The company has benefited from some of the Chinese government’s air pollution policies, including mandates that electric cars make up a certain amount of state vehicle purchases.

Career

He spent several years as a government researcher, but in 1995 he entered the private sector and founded his own company, BYD Company, outside of Shenzhen. Founded with his cousin Lu Xiangyang when he was 29 years old, BYD Company is currently the world’s biggest mobile phone batteries manufacturer. In early 2009, he was reportedly worth US$3.4 billion, placing him 408th on Hurun Report’s Global Rich List 2014 . In late 2009, his worth grew to $5.1 billion and was crowned China’s richest man on the Hurun Report. This was due largely to a fivefold increase in his company’s value after Berkshire Hathaway bought 225 million new shares of BYD in 2008.

In November 2021, Forbes reported that Wang’s wealth had increased to $23.5 billion, making him the 14th richest person in China, this was due to a twofold increase in BYD’s share price over the previous year.