Because he was tired of the wealthy life, he actually divorced his richest wife. This person was the Englishman Hawken, and his ex-wife was Dai Xiuli, the richest man in Heilongjiang, the first female boss in Chinese football, and the owner of an underground business empire…
As we all know, former entertainment reporter Gambi became the richest woman in Hong Kong thanks to the help of super rich man Liu Luanxiong. Coincidentally, Dai Xiuli is also a female reporter and has ascended to the throne of the richest woman by virtue of her ability.
Dai Xiuli was born in Harbin in 1963. After graduating from Heilongjiang University, she worked as a reporter for Harbin Daily and Shenzhen Special Zone Daily for several years. In 1991, when she went to study in the UK, she met math teacher Tony Hawken, and she changed her name to Shirley Hope.
But her life in the UK did not last long. In 1994, Dai Xiuli returned to China and founded the real estate company Renhe Group, officially starting her business.
At that time, Dai Xiuli created a brand new business model, which the industry called the "air raid shelter model." They use the emptying projects built in various places to develop them commercially, and obtain commercial returns by leasing shops and transferring shop operating rights.
The advantage of this model is that there is no need to pay land transfer fees and land value-added tax, which greatly reduces costs. The operating costs of underground business are also relatively low, so profits are considerable.
According to the media, the gross profit margin of Renhe Business has remained above 70% for a long time, far exceeding the average level of real estate companies at that time.
In January 2008, Renhe announced that it had received a total investment of more than 2 billion yuan from Sequoia Capital and others. In October, it successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and raised 3.39 billion Hong Kong dollars. Dai Xiuli holds 68.96% of the company's equity, so her wealth has skyrocketed.
With the support of capital, Renhe has made crazy advances and deployed in more than ten cities including Wuhan, Chengdu, Dalian, Humen, and Ganzhou. By 2010, Renhe's commercial operation area reached 732,000 square meters, a year-on-year increase of more than 100%.
In 2011, the area of Renhe and commercial operations soared to 1.39 million square meters, and the construction area under construction and reserve exceeded 5 million square meters. In the same year, according to British media reports, Dai Xiuli's total assets were 1.06 billion pounds, ranking 7th among the richest women in the UK.
In 2014, according to the "Hurun Rich Women List", Dai Xiuli ranked 18th with a wealth of 9.5 billion yuan, becoming the richest woman in Heilongjiang.
After gaining great wealth, Dai Xiuli, who loves football, bought the English Premier League team Reading and became its largest shareholder. She is known as the first female boss in Chinese professional football. Additionally, she is the owner of Guizhou Renhe, a club that won the Chinese Football Association Cup in 2013.
In addition to buying football teams, Dai Xiuli also purchased a batch of Bentley and Rolls-Royce luxury cars, spent over 100 million yuan on a luxury cruise ship, and purchased two private jets to facilitate "travel" between Hong Kong, the mainland and abroad.
At the same time, Dai Xiuli did not forget her younger brother Dai Yongge, allowing him to join Renhe and enjoy a high annual salary. Take 2013 as an example. Dai Yongge received 31.9 million yuan in remuneration from listed companies, which was much more than executives of domestic listed companies. Vanke Wang Shi only received 15.9 million yuan.
After spending money like water, no one expected that the company's rapid growth would come to an abrupt end. In April 2014, Renhe Business released its 2013 financial report with losses as high as 1.7 billion yuan. You know, Renhe Business also made a profit of 895 million yuan in the same period last year.
The reason for the sudden huge loss was due to aggressive expansion in the early stage and lack of management in the later stage. "Renhe sold all the shops to retail investors and sold them for many years without participating in management." Some people in the industry also analyzed that underground business is a "policy sideline" and cannot break through restrictions after reaching a certain scale. "It is not like Wanda and the like that can be copied."
The "air raid shelter model" fell from the altar. In 2014, 57-year-old Hawken filed for divorce from Dai Xiuli. In an interview with the British media, Hawken bluntly said that the couple have very different views on wealth, and "I am tired of living a life that is too rich."
Hawken mentioned that once the two of them went to China, Dai Xiuli went to sea on a yacht with her relatives and friends, and brought a batch of high-priced wine with a unit price of over 900 pounds to enjoy. Hawken was not used to such extravagant style. He advocated frugality, so he asked Dai Xiuli for 1 million pounds in alimony and then parted ways.
Dai Xiuli, who was divorced, donated most of Renhe's shares to Dai Yongge, making him the actual controller of Renhe. Since then, her position as the richest woman in Heilongjiang has been completely cut off from her.
