Chinese woman tycoon tops list of country’s most generous givers with 2.92billion yuan donation
He Qiaonu, who founded one of Asia’s largest landscaping companies, gave more than 76 million shares of her company to a foundation to support environmental protection
A woman entrepreneur from Beijing has been crowned the mainland’s most generous philanthropist after making the largest single charitable donation of 2015.
He Qiaonu, founder and chairman of Beijing Orient Landscape, one of Asia’s largest landscape architecture companies, announced in September she would donate 76.3 million of her company’s shares to the Qiaonu Foundation to support environmental protection. The shares were worth 2.92 billion yuan (HK$3.46 billion).
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The donation was enough to make the 49-year-old businesswoman the mainland’s top philanthropist of the year, according to China Philanthropy Research Institute, at Beijing Normal University.
The institute has compiled a list of the top 100 mainland philanthropists based on donations last year. Between them, they donated 12.8 billion yuan.
He was followed by Chen Yidan, one of the founders of internet giant Tencent, who gave 2.02 billion yuan to support Wuhan College in Hubei province, while Li Hejun, Hanergy Thin Film Power chairman and once China’s richest man, came third for giving 1.02 billion yuan.
Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group and China’s richest man, came in fifth for giving 360 million yuan, while Alibaba chairman Jack Ma was 10th for donating 234 million yuan.