Chapter 426: Rich List and Becoming the Richest Man in Mainland China
On December 6, 2009, Forbes (China) magazine released the 2009 China Rich List, in which Liu Zhou successfully topped the list as the richest man in mainland China with a net worth of over 100 billion yuan.

This time, Liu Zhou has reached the top by a cliff-like leap. The second place on the rich list, BYD's Wang Chuanfu, has a net worth of only 396 billion yuan, which is more than billion yuan less than him.

Liu Zhou also became the second billionaire in China with a net worth of 100 billion yuan. The first was the daughter of the former CEO of Country Garden.

In 2007, Country Garden had just gone public, and her father put most of the shares in her name, helping her become the richest person in mainland China that year and making her the first tycoon in mainland China with a net worth of hundreds of billions.

It was also in that year that Liu Zhou, who had the opportunity to become the richest man in mainland China, was suppressed by the sudden emergence of the daughter of Country Garden and continued to be the second in command for a thousand years.

However, two years later, Liu Zhou finally got rid of the hat of being the runner-up for a thousand years and successfully reached the top last year.

The youngest richest person and the first female billionaire who once enjoyed great glory is now ranked only fifth on the rich list this year, with a net worth of only 366 billion. The financial crisis has directly reduced her wealth by more than half.

So now, Liu Zhou is the only billionaire in the mainland with a billionaire value of over 100 billion yuan.

Liu Zhou's asset composition is very simple, one part is the Internet, and the other part is the film and television industry.

These two fields were less affected by the financial crisis, especially the film and television industry, which flourished even more when the overall environment was not good.

The Internet industry was actually greatly affected by the financial crisis in the beginning, but it recovered very quickly. While other industries were still struggling to survive due to the financial crisis, the Internet industry had already begun to enter the fast lane of development.

It can be seen from the 2009 rich list that in the past half of the top ten were real estate tycoons, but this year there are only three on the list, and their rankings are not very high.

They are Yang Huiyan who ranked fifth, Xu Shimao of Shimao Group who ranked sixth, and Wang Da Lao of Wanda who ranked tenth. Moreover, Wang Da Lao ranked tenth only based on the assets of his entire family.

Then there are three Internet giants ranked in the top ten, namely Liu Zhou ranked first, Pony Ma ranked fourth and Ding Lei ranked seventh.

The source of assets of Xiao Ma Ge and Ding Lei is also very simple, which is the shares of Penguin Group and NetEase Games.

Both companies are listed companies and their wealth is easy to calculate.

By the end of 2009, the market value of Penguin Group soared to US$ billion, making it the Internet company with the highest market value in China.

Because of Liu Zhou, Xiao Ma Ge's shares in this life were not diluted as much as in the original time and space, and he still held nearly 16% of the shares after the listing.

Although he cashed out a lot of stocks in recent years to improve his life and for other expenses, he still holds 11.6% of the shares, which is much more than the 7% shares in the original time and space.

The 11.6% stake in Penguin Group held by Pony Ma is worth US$47.56 billion, equivalent to about RMB 380 billion, second only to Liu Zhou, Wang Chuanfu and Liu Yongxing of Oriental Hope Group.

Ding Lei holds 2009% of the shares of NetEase Cloud Music. As of the end of 84, the market value of NetEase Cloud Music was US$ billion.

Ding Lei's net worth is US$42.84 billion, equivalent to RMB 342.72 billion, ranking seventh, second only to Xu Shimao's net worth of RMB 352 billion.

NetEase Group's main business now is games and portal websites. Compared with the comprehensive development of Penguin Group, NetEase's business is still a little monotonous.

However, NetEase's gaming business is really strong. "World of Warcraft" has been extremely popular in mainland China in the past two years and has a strong ability to make money, coupled with its own "Fantasy Westward Journey" and "Westward Journey Online" series.

Its revenue is higher than that of Penguin Group, which owns two popular games, "Dungeon & Fighter" and "Cross Fire". NetEase Games can also be said to be the number one game company in mainland China.

This is also the main factor supporting the recovery of NetEase, but after all, relying solely on the gaming business is still too single.

Therefore, the recovery of NetEase Games is relatively slow, far from being comparable to Penguin and Baidu, and even less than Sina.

NetEase Technology's current market value of US$84 billion is less than its peak market value before the financial crisis, when NetEase's market value peaked at over US$ billion.

Sina and NetEase suffered similar situations when facing the financial crisis, with their market capitalizations being halved, but now Sina's market capitalization has recovered to tens of billions of dollars.

It has even surpassed Sina's previous peak market value, and now its market value is as high as US$132 billion.

Sina also became the one with the highest market value among the three major portals, and it was far ahead.

Of course Sohu has the lowest market value among the three major portals. Although Sohu has more businesses, none of them is as strong as NetEase Games, so Sohu's current market value is only over 6 billion US dollars.

The three companies have already opened up a gap between each other. Among them, Sina has the strongest momentum, and its market value is almost the sum of the other two companies.

The reason why Sina's momentum is so strong is, of course, because all the businesses under Sina Group are booming and almost all of them are the first in the industry.

Currently, Sina Group has five major businesses, namely wireless value-added services, portal websites, games, video websites and Weibo.

Because the game company has just started, it mainly develops adapted games of popular online novels, so its revenue barely ranks in the top ten, and is far from being comparable to the game departments of NetEase and Penguin.

But apart from games, other businesses are either the first in the industry or in the first tier of the industry.

Although wireless value-added services will gradually be eliminated with the advent of mobile Internet, they still contribute considerable profits to Sina during this period.

With the attention of Sina Group and President Wang Yan personally taking charge of this business, Sina's wireless value-added business has been ranked first in the industry for several consecutive years.

As for the portal website, Liu Zhou personally instructed that it should be given high attention. In addition, Sina already has a strong foundation in this area, so the advantage is even more obvious.

In the past two years, Penguin Group has also been making efforts in portal websites. Relying on the huge traffic of Penguin Group, it has surpassed Sohu and NetEase successively. However, several challenges have failed to shake Sina's position in the portal website.

Although Sina is the industry leader in wireless value-added services and portal websites, the overall market size of these two areas is not very large. The real reasons for Sina's high market value are its video websites and Weibo.

Sina Weibo has almost monopolized the Weibo market. Most of the Weibo accounts launched by other Internet companies have been closed. Even the Penguin Weibo that has not been closed yet is already half-dead.

As Weibo becomes an increasingly important and even dominant social platform, its value is of course rising.

Many investment institutions have contacted Liu Zhou, asking if he has any idea of ​​splitting Weibo and listing it.

Liu Zhou of course refused this, but he also asked about their valuation of Weibo, and the offer was as high as 4 billion US dollars.

Liu Zhou believes that if Weibo is really taken out for external financing, the valuation can be at least 5 billion US dollars.

The market value of Sina Video is not much different from that of Weibo, and may even exceed it.

It’s not that the video website field is more powerful, but because the video website field is currently hot in the mainland, it is a big outlet, and capital is also more sought after.

Sina Video cannot claim to be the first in the industry at present, because Tudou and Youku also have high traffic. However, these three video websites are considered the first echelon in the industry, and are clearly ahead of other websites.

Although Liu Zhou did not take Sina Video to investment institutions for valuation, Youku and Tudou are good references.

Both companies have completed three rounds of financing and are about to launch IPOs and prepare to go public in the United States.

Among them, Tudou’s valuation is as high as nearly 6 billion US dollars, while Youku’s valuation is slightly lower, but also more than 5 billion US dollars.

As a website as famous as these two companies, Sina Video’s valuation will not be less than 5 billion US dollars.

Even though today’s video websites seem to have little content, they are so popular that less than a year after Youku went public, its market value was higher than that of Sohu.

The founder of Youku, Gu Yongqiang, was the former president of Sohu, which once caused Zhang Chaoyang to be ridiculed by some media.

It is precisely because Liu Zhou allowed Sina Group to enter the field of video websites that Sina is now far ahead of the other two companies.

Otherwise, Sina would be like the original time and space, relying only on Weibo for support, with a market value lower than NetEase, and there would be no glory as it is now.

Now, as video websites and Weibo are increasingly valued by capital, their market value is also increasing. It can be seen from the stock market that Sina Group's stocks are obviously more popular than those of NetEase and Sohu.

I believe that the day when Sina Group's market value reaches the sum of the other two companies will not be too far away. This may be something that no one would have thought of at the beginning. After all, these three companies have always been equally famous.

Liu Zhou also successfully became the richest man in mainland China thanks to two hot Internet companies, Penguin and Sina, as well as the Golden Harvest Group which was successfully listed last year.

Before the financial crisis, Liu Zhou cashed out part of the shares of Penguin Group when its market value was the highest. Later, after the stock price of Penguin Group plummeted, he bought back part of it.

He also increased his stake in Penguin Group to 10%. Previously, Liu Zhou held about 9% of Penguin shares.

The current market value of Penguin Group is 410 billion US dollars, and 41% is billion US dollars.

Sina Group’s current market value is US$132 billion, and Liu Zhou holds a 35.5% stake, worth US$46.86 billion.

The shares of these two companies account for the bulk of Liu Zhou's wealth.

However, although the market value of Golden Harvest Group is not as high as that of Penguin and Sina, it is also a large company in China.

By the end of 2009, the share price of Golden Harvest Group had risen to 24.5, with a total market value of 735 billion, which was not much lower than that of NetEase Games.

When Jiahe Group went public, its issue price was only four yuan. Later, its stock price skyrocketed after its listing, closing at nearly eighteen yuan on the first day of listing. After a period of growth, the stock price stabilized at around twenty yuan.

However, with the successive box office success of "No Man's Land", "The Message" and "Lost on Journey", as well as several future development plans announced by Golden Harvest Group, they have also been widely recognized by the outside world.

So in just three months, the stock price of Golden Harvest Group rose by more than four yuan.

Although four dollars may seem like a small amount, it has increased the market value of Golden Harvest Group by more than 10 billion.

In fact, less than a month has passed since Forbes released the list, and the share price of Golden Harvest Group has started to rise again, and its total market value now exceeds 80 billion.

Because in early January this year, Golden Harvest Group also announced its 2009 financial report and various data.

Needless to say, in the film industry, the total box office reached 12.9 billion, ranking first in the industry.

The TV drama industry also achieved very good results. "Going West" was a huge hit on CCTV-1 and became the most watched TV program of the year.

The second most watched TV series is also produced by Golden Harvest Group, "The Disguiser", which has even greater reputation and influence than "Going West".

Although these two TV series did not contribute much revenue, their influence and reputation for Golden Harvest Group are no less than those of the two blockbuster movies.

For a listed company, the most important thing is the gimmick, so these two TV series also have a significant effect on boosting Golden Harvest's stock price.

But the company that contributed the most profits was Golden Harvest International, a company focused on overseas distribution.

In 2009, Golden Harvest Group's revenue reached over 12.6 billion yuan, and its profit exceeded billion yuan for the first time, reaching billion yuan, of which Golden Harvest International contributed nearly half of the profit.

Therefore, being a channel is the real big money business. The Big Seven Hollywood studios make so much money every year, and it is their distribution departments that contribute the most to the profits.

Now Golden Harvest International has almost monopolized the overseas distribution of Chinese-language films, and Jiang Zhiqiang's Emperor Entertainment Group is far from comparable to Golden Harvest International.

The region where Emperor Entertainment Group was most powerful in overseas distribution was North America, but with the acquisition of Summit Entertainment by Golden Harvest Group, their strongest market is no longer as strong as Golden Harvest.

Not to mention the distribution in Asia. Golden Harvest has been working in the Asian market for decades. Now Golden Harvest has long regained its former channels, which Edko Films cannot compare with.

Therefore, the rise of Golden Harvest Group had a significant impact on Emperor Entertainment Group, causing them to lose a large portion of their distribution profits.

But the market is so big, Liu Zhou can't just leave the cake at hand and not eat it. Besides, Jiahe didn't use any crooked means to grab the cake, but got it by relying on its strength.

So after "Red Cliff", due to conflicts of interest, the two companies never cooperated again, and the relationship between Liu Zhou and Jiang Zhiqiang also reached a freezing point.

However, Liu Zhou didn't care about it, especially when he saw the profits contributed by Golden Harvest International. He didn't care even more. His personal relationship with Jiang Zhiqiang was just average, and hundreds of millions of profits every year were not as attractive to him.

According to this year's momentum, Golden Harvest Group should have no problem breaking through the 100 billion market value in a few years. After all, Golden Harvest Group will have several hit movies released this year.

So in fact, Jiahe Group has made a significant contribution to Liu Zhou’s wealth.

Even if calculated based on the 735 billion market value of Golden Harvest Group as reported by Forbes magazine at the time, Liu Zhou nominally held 286.65% of the shares, worth billion.

Finally, there is Zhoushan Literature. Although this company is not listed, Forbes values ​​it at 3 billion yuan.

The total wealth contributed to Liu Zhou by Penguin and Sina is US$87.86 billion, which is nearly RMB 740 billion.

Therefore, Liu Zhou also became the richest man in mainland China in 1056.65 with a wealth of 2009 billion yuan.

(End of this chapter)