Liu is chairman of East Hope Group, a Shanghai-based conglomerate in eastern China. The closely held company is calculated to have annual revenue of more than $11 billion from its interests in energy, property, aluminum production, industrial-materials manufacturing and a fishmeal plant in North Korea.
Yongxing Liu's net worth of $10.3B can buy ...
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Liu's wealth is derived from closely held East Hope Group. The Shanghai-based company, which is owned entirely by Liu, his wife and his daughter, has two main businesses: animal feed and industrial materials. Liu is credited with full ownership in the net worth analysis to reflect his status as chairman.
The group had consolidated revenue of 70 billion yuan ($11.4 billion) in 2014, according a December 2014 company newsletter posted on its website. Revenue for the materials group is based on the 2016 top 500 companies list from All China Federation of Industry and Commerce. Revenue for the feed business is determined by subtracting materials group revenue from the total and adjusting to reflect performance. The unit achieved double digit sales growth in 2016, according to an April 2017 company announcement.
The animal feed business is valued using the average price-to-earnings multiple of four publicly traded peer companies: Guangdong Haid Group, Tongwei, Liaoning Wellhope Agri-Tech JSC and China Animal Husbandry Industry.
The materials business is valued using the average price-to-earnings multiple of three publicly traded peers: China Hongqiao, China Zhongwang and Reliance Steel and Aluminum.
A company spokeswoman, who declined to give her name, said the company declined to comment on the net worth calculation.
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.