Few of the many rags-to-riches stories are more spectacular than that of Li Rucheng, the 59-year-old CEO of the Ningbo-based garment and real estate giant Youngor Group.
Sent to Ningbo with his family as a child in the 1960s, Li was transferred from a state farm to a garment factory, where he hauled bricks with a horse-driven wagon.
Li transformed the factory into what would become the Youngor Group, a conglomerate that notched sales of 11.5 billion yuan (HK$14.1 billion) last year.
Li was in the right place at the right time, but he also benefited from a deep 'understanding of the importance of branding, diversification of investment, supply chain management and co-operation with government', according to Jason Choi, an associate professor who teaches fashion business at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Youngor extended its brands as the market grew and diversified. Choi says the firm 'successively moved the brands up the ladder from the mass market to the middle and upper levels'. Not that Youngor's path has been easy. The preference of many Chinese consumers for foreign brands has prevented Youngor from charging the kind of premiums - and the resultant profit margins - on which foreign brands rely.
Now Youngor is being squeezed by factories in Laos and Vietnam that have much lower labour costs. That led Youngor to spend US$4 million on a factory in Hanoi last year 'to maintain our cost competitiveness'.