China Herald: Super-rich earn fortunes in China´s car-industry

Rupert Hoogewerf

China´s billionaires not only spend a huge part of their money on luxury cars, they also make it from the car-industry, says Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of the Hurun Rich list in the China Daily.25 Percent of the super-rich in the automotive industry come from China.

The China Daily:

A quarter of top car-industry billionaires call China home, a list from Shanghai-based Hurun magazine that documents the life of the wealthy, showed.

This year's Richest People from the Car Industry list named 45 billionaires from 13 countries. Their average fortune was $3.75 billion. Among them, 11 are from China.

Wei Jianjun, 50, chairman of the Hebei-based Great Wall Motors Co Ltd, is the richest self-made car entrepreneur in China. He ranked fifth with $7.7 billion. His company is China's largest private car brand and the biggest domestic manufacturer of SUVs and pickups.

Great Wall's market capitalization is more than $16.7 billion and annual production capacity is 800,000 vehicles. Total sales revenue was 56.8 billion yuan ($9.19 billion) in 2013 and net profit 8.3 billion yuan.

"It is no longer a secret that Chinese billionaires are huge buyers of luxury cars," Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report, said. "But still it is quite a surprise for us to find out that Chinese are not only major buyers but also major profit-makers."

Most of China's leading automobile companies are State-owned, making it difficult to calculate personal wealth, he said.

More in the China Daily.

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