How did Wanda founder Wang Jianlin escape the wave that swept away embattled Evergrande property tycoon Hui Ka Yan?

Rise and fall of Wang Jianlin and his Wanda Group empire is an archetypal story of how a major private business drifts along China’s economic tides and policy cycles

But Wang’s proactive moves ensured he and Wanda did not have the same fate as Hui Ka Yan, the embattled founder of indebted real estate developer Evergrande Group

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Published: 6:00am, 31 May 2024Updated: 2:09pm, 31 May 2024

Eight years ago, when asked during a television interview for advice on how to become a billionaire, Wang Jianlin – then China’s richest man – gave an answer that is still frequently quoted today: “First you set a small goal that’s achievable, for example, earning 100 million yuan.”

Over the years, however, Wang has lost more than 1,800 “small goals” after seeing his estimated wealth shrink from 215 billion yuan in 2016 to 30 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) in 2023.

In the meantime, the Wanda Group empire he built has scaled down from a conglomerate with a lofty global footprint to a domestic-focused company that is mainly engaged in commercial property after it sold a slew of assets to clear its huge debt.

The rise and fall of Wang and his company is an archetypal story of how a major private business drifts along China’s economic tides and policy cycles.

“It’s a very good case to look at, as it survived multiple adjustments in China’s property sector and avoided the fate of many other companies,” said Tang Dajie, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Enterprise Institute think tank.

In the past decade that followed an economic boom, China’s property sector underwent a free fall from its peak as authorities chopped and changed their attitude toward overseas investment, the pursuit for debt-funded expansion was replaced with an emphasis on growth and deleveraging to prevent risk, and a coronavirus pandemic disrupted the economy’s growth trajectory.

That speed was just phenomenal. I was blown away by that

Rupert Hoogewerf

But while business giants including Evergrande Group and HNA Group collapsed under mountains of debt, Wanda – which started shifting its business model early to become a light-asset company – has been able to survive.

It was around 2015 during Wanda’s golden years when Rupert Hoogewerf, a chronicler of China’s wealthy who has issued the Hurun Rich List since 1999, visited a real estate project developed by Wanda in eastern China’s Hefei city.

Amid rapid urbanisation of the world’s second-largest economy, the company had acquired a large plot of land and developed it into a commercial complex with residential units, a hotel and a theme park within 18 months, he recalled.