China’s auto industry may be struggling on the whole of late yet a clan that controls a distributor of global brands has managed to enter the ranks of the country’s billionaire families on successful store expansion.
Shares in China MeiDong Auto Holdings closed at a record HK$11.04 today, up 1.5% from yesterday, making Chairman Ye Fan and his family’s stake worth $1.1 billion.
Founded in 2004, MeiDong Auto is one of the largest privately-owned automobile dealers headquartered in China’s southern Guangdong province. MeiDong sells Toyota, Lexus, BMW and Porsche brand models – both new and used. The company went public at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at HK$1.8 per share in 2013.
Sales in the first six months of 2019 rose by 57% from a year earlier to 6.8 billion, or $970 million. That has helped to propel MeiDong’s shares by 300% in the past year.
Ye, 48, holds an undergraduate degree in inorganic mon-metallic materials from South China University of Technology. He shares his fortune with family members, according to the company’s interim report.
–Elaine Mao
