SF Express chief Wang Wei unseats Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing as third-richest Chinese

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Workers sort parcels at a SF Express distribution centre in Wuhan city, China’s Hubei province. When Wang Wei set up his business in the early 1990s, the thought of shopping online was beyond anybody’s imagination. Photo: Imaginechina

Celine Ge

Published: 4:02pm, 9 Mar 2017Updated: 10:57pm, 9 Mar 2017

A Hong Kong-raised parcel delivery man has unseated Li Ka-shing to become the world’s third ranked Chinese billionaire, behind property-to-media mogul Wang Jianlin and Alibaba Group Holding’s chairman Jack Ma Yun, a new survey showed.

Wang Wei, chairman and founder of SF Express – the country’s equivalent to DHL – saw his wealth skyrocket five-fold to US$27 billion within the last few weeks. His current fortune has already outstripped the US$25 billion net worth of Hong Kong’s “superman Li” whose wealth remained unchanged last year, according to the latest Hurun Global Rich List, which tracks the world’s wealthiest people.

The phenomenal rise of Wang in the super-rich rankings was propelled by a US$30 billion public listing of his courier company in Shanghai in late February. Within the first few days of trading SF Express shares had surged as much as 40 per cent and so had the fortunes of the 46-year-old who holds 66 per cent of the company.

Wang also swapped spots with Tencent founder Pony Ma Huateng to become the third richest man on the Chinese mainland.

Wang Wei, chairman and founder of SF Express, saw his wealth skyrocket five-fold to US$27 billion within the last few weeks. Photo: Imaginechina

In a typical rags to riches story in China, the son of an interpreter and a university teacher migrated to Hong Kong from Shanghai at the age of seven. A high-school dropout, Wang started out as a textile factory worker in Guangdong before setting up his courier service SF Express in 1993 with a 100,000 yuan loan from his father.

Wang jumped into the mainland’s parcel delivery business at a time when it was dominated by state-owned China Post. Ever since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 citizens would have to visit their nearest post office to ship packages and wait a few weeks before they arrived at the recipient’s house.