Word: shanlis
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...Weijian Shan, a managing partner of U.S. private-equity fund Newbridge Capital, learned some unexpected lessons about business in China's Gobi Desert. During the Cultural Revolution, Shan, a Beijing native, was banished there for six years. By day, he sweated under the blistering sun, tilling the soil and herding cattle?or healing villagers as one of Mao's famous "barefoot doctors." At night, he listened to Voice of America on a small radio, studied an English dictionary and hoped for something better. "When you have a job in the Gobi with absolutely no hope and no future, you learn...
...That perseverance eventually paid off. Shan went on to get a Ph.D. in business at the University of California, Berkeley, and teach at the prestigious Wharton business school?and it served him well in pulling off one of the most groundbreaking investments ever made in China. In May Newbridge, based in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed to purchase nearly 18% of Shenzhen Development Bank for $160 million, making the fund the first foreign investor to take management control of a Chinese bank. The tortuous negotiations took two long years. "There are few people I know who have the same tenacity," says...
...Turning around Shenzhen?among China's most troubled banks, with some 9% of its loans officially nonperforming?won't be any easier than buying it. But Shan, 51, has been there before. In 2000 he helped Newbridge become the first foreign owner of a South Korean bank, Korea First; Newbridge managers doubled the bank's assets and strengthened its loan portfolio. In January Newbridge sold its 49% stake to Standard Chartered for $1.6 billion?nearly quadrupling the fund's investment...
Turning around Shenzhen--among China's most troubled banks, with some 9% of its loans officially nonperforming--won't be any easier than buying it. But Shan, 51, has been there before. In 2000 he helped Newbridge become the first foreign owner of a South Korean bank, Korea First; Newbridge managers doubled the bank's assets and strengthened its loan portfolio. In January Newbridge sold its 49% stake to Standard Chartered for $1.6 billion--nearly quadrupling the fund's investment...
...Shan is outspoken about business conditions in China. In editorials in the Asian Wall Street Journal, he wrote that China needs more market reform to stamp out corruption, which he called "a serious threat to China's body politic," and warned that willy-nilly lending by Chinese banks will wallop the economy. "I see a market filled with pitfalls," he says. "China is deceptive. Growth doesn't necessarily translate into profit." During a February luncheon in Hong Kong, Shan shocked the crowd by challenging Nobel-prizewinning economist Amartya Sen for praising Mao's "barefoot doctor" program as a sound...