How China's Self-Made Women Billionaires Earned Their Fortunes

Chinese billionaire Zhang Xin [WEF]

Kerry A. Dolan

Just eight women rank among the 100 wealthiest people in China, according to the Forbes list of China’s 100 richest, published last week. Of those eight women, two inherited their fortunes. The other six are self-made billionaires – a pretty impressive statistic, considering that just 7 of the 45 women on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans built their own fortunes.

What’s amazing is how young, relatively speaking, most of the Chinese women billionaires are. Five out of the six are in their forties. Their youth speaks to the incredible growth of capitalism, and the growth of the economy, in recent decades in China.

Real estate has proven to be the key business for four of these six Chinese women. Wu Yajun, the wealthiest of this elite cohort, ranks number 5 on the China list with an estimated net worth of $6.2 billion. She chairs the board of Longfor Properties, which trades in Hong Kong. She owns about 75% of the company’s stock. Longfor develops a broad range of properties –including residential, office buildings, high-rise apartments and shopping malls. She joined the company in 1994 in Chongqing, where it was founded. It’s now headquartered in Beijing.

Chan Laiwa’s fortune is also tied primarily to real estate. Chan, who’s 71, ranked number 17 richest in China with a net worth estimated at $2.8 billion. She founded Fuwah Group, one of Beijing’s largest real estate developers, in 1988. It is still privately owned. Chan is reported to have purchased her first few real estate properties with profits from a furniture repair business she started in Hong Kong.  

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