Hong Kong businessman Stephen Wong (黃宏生) was once jailed for theft and fraud. He is now staging a comeback.
Wong, who founded Chinese TV maker Skyworth Digital Holdings Ltd (創維數碼控股), has amassed a net worth of US$1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The majority of the fortune comes from his 36 percent stake in Skyworth. The rest is derived from a closely held electric-car maker that he is modeling after billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors Inc.
The Hong Kong tycoon is seeking to develop the new venture as China pushes to contain pollution and demand for electric vehicles increases. The 59-year-old resigned as chairman of Skyworth in 2006 after he and his brother were sentenced to a six-year jail term in Hong Kong for stealing more than HK$50 million (US$6.5 million) of company funds and a fraud to obtain share options.
“He wants to come back and rise again by bringing his previous experience in the capital markets and management to a new territory,” said Zhong Shi (鍾石), a Beijing-based independent auto analyst, who is a committee member of state-backed China Automobile Dealers Association. “For entrepreneurs, their experience, determination and ideas are more important than products.”
The billionaire was released in 2009, Skyworth said. His wife, Lin Weiping (林衛平), serves as chairman of Skyworth.
Wong owns more than 80 percent of electric-car maker Nanjing Golden Dragon Bus Co (南京金龍客車).
“Before setting up Nanjing Golden Dragon, Wong enjoyed a good life traveling around the world with his wife and playing golf with friends, but he felt lonely while his friends were all busy with their work — he couldn’t live an easy life and decided to come back again,” Nanjing Golden Dragon brand manager Shi Wenhui said.
The billionaire wants to make Nanjing Golden Dragon China’s top manufacturer of electric commercial vehicles within five years, Shi said.
Nanjing Golden Dragon’s goal is to become “the Tesla among new-energy commercial vehicles.”
BYD Co (比亞迪), the automaker part-owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, is China’s biggest electric-car maker. The company’s founder, Wang Chuanfu (王傳福), has a net worth of US$5.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking.
“New-energy vehicles are the hot industry that tons of investors are looking at,” Zhong said.
The Chinese government has started a strategic initiative to build electric cars in China. As many as 40 models are to go on sale this year, triple the number available two years ago, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.
“It’s good for him to enter an industry that enjoys significant support from the Chinese government,” said Cao He (曹鶴), a Beijing-based auto analyst at China Minzu Securities Co (中國民族證券).
“People like Wong won’t remain low-profile forever,” he added.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS