As tributes poured in for Wenzhou's most famous entrepreneur, who died last week in Shanghai, the question on everyone's lips is whether the company he founded will survive without him.
Wang Junyao, 38, died on November 7 of stomach cancer, leaving the Junyao Group with assets of 3.5 billion yuan, most of it in property and also in aviation and dairy products, 4,000 employees and a listed A-share firm he acquired in July.
China's corporate landscape is littered with the remains of family companies that started with a bang, before collapsing beneath a weight of debt due to runaway diversification, lack of supervision over the board and power struggles among family members.
'The biggest problem for such companies is the weight of family obligations and the need to do favours to relatives,' said Bao Yujun, director of the Private Economy Research Centre in Beijing.
'Private companies operate at a disadvantage in China. They lack proper legal protection and the stock market is virtually closed to them. They face ideological obstacles. And it is hard for them to attract high-quality managers, of which there is a shortage in China anyway,' he said.
He said that the tragedy of Wang's death was that his company was in the transition from a family-run firm into a modern enterprise, with diverse shareholders and a system of corporate checks and balances.