Liu is founder and chairman of New Hope Group, a conglomerate with 135,000 employees and 300 billion yuan ($46.8 billion) in assets. The group controls New Hope Liuhe, a publicly traded animal feed producer that had revenue of more than 110 billion yuan in 2020. It also owns businesses in the food, dairy and property sectors.
Liu Yonghao's net worth of $8.96B can buy ...
... and is equivalent to ...
The majority of Liu's fortune is derived from New Hope Group, a Beijing-based closely held conglomerate with 135,000 employees and about 300 billion yuan ($46.8 billion) in assets, according to its website.
He owns the group outright, according to filings with the State Administration For Industry & Commerce. Shares in the names of his wife and daughter are attributed to Liu, reflecting his status as founder and patriarch.
Through New Hope Group he owns 55% of its publicly traded animal feed business New Hope Liuhe, according the unit's 2021 semi-annual report.
New Hope Group's real estate segment had revenue of 30.5 billion yuan in 2020, according to a company filing. It's valued using the average price-to-book value and price-to-earnings multiples of four publicly traded peers: Shimao Property Holdings, Gemdale Corp, Shanghai Shimao Co and RiseSun Real Estate Development Co.
Liu also owns about 81% of New Hope Dairy through holding companies controlled by himself and his daughter, according to the company's 2021 semi-annual report. The company's property service unit started publicly trading in Hong Kong in May 2021 and the family owns a 68% stake through offshore trusts, according to company disclosure as of June 30, 2021.
He also has a stake in China Minsheng Banking, according to company filing.
The value of his cash investments is based on these cash flows, taxes, market performance and charitable giving.
Song Yang, spokeswoman of New Hope Group, declined to comment on the billionaire's net worth.
Liu was born in 1951, the youngest son in a poor family of four brothers and one sister in western China's Sichuan province. During the Cultural Revolution, 17-year-old Liu went to work in a village near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. He earned about 2 cents a day for the next four years. He later studied at a vocational school and became a physics teacher in Chengdu in 1978.
Two years later, Liu's older brother, Liu Yongxing, set up a street stand to make money by repairing radios, so he could afford to buy meat for his son for the Chinese New Year. Yongxing earned about $50 in the first week, almost a year's worth of pay from his factory job.
The Liu brothers -- Yongxing, Yongyan, Yongmei and Yonghao -- were encouraged by their entrepreneurship. Two years later, they all quit their jobs, pooled together $500 in startup capital by selling their watches and bicycles, and started raising and selling quail.
The brothers founded Hope Group in 1991 and turned it to one of the biggest animal feed makers as China embarked on economic reforms under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. They split the business in 1995 and headed in different directions. Yonghao founded New Hope Group in 1996, mainly focusing on animal feed production. Two years later, New Hope Liuhe, the animal husbandry subsidiary of the group went public. New Hope Liuhe is the country's largest animal feed producer and had revenue of $9.8 billion in 2015.
In May 2013, Liu handed over the reins of Liuhe to his daughter Liu Chang. The billionaire remains as chairman of the group. Graduated with an EMBA degree from Peking University, the younger Liu is the chairman of New Hope Liuhe.