For China Resources chairman Fu Yuning, ‘patriotism pays’ amid Vanke power struggle
Analysts say he sees property as a profit engine for his state-owned company, and that China’s largest housebuilder would provide good synergy for its real estate businesses
Veteran businessman Fu Yuning managed to stay out of the public eye during his 15-year stint in state-owned ports-to-financial services conglomerate China Merchants Group, but investors began to take notice two years ago when he was appointed chairman of state-owned China Resources Holdings, replacing Song Lin who was placed under investigation for corruption.
The tall, urbane and low-key chief has now been thrust into the spotlight after China Resources was caught up in a widely watched power struggle at China Vanke, the country’s largest residential property developer, that set privately run property and insurance firm Baoneng against Vanke’s top management headed by Wang Shi.
Seldom, if ever, one to grant interviews to mainland or international media, the well-educated chairman, who obtained a doctorate in engineering from a UK university, is an enigma to the public and his visionare not widely reported.
But a book written by Liew Mun Leong, the founding president and chief executive of Singapore based Capitaland Group, one of Asia’s largest real estate companies, provides an illuminating character description of Fu.
In his 2007 book Building People: Sunday Emails from a CEO, a collection of what Liew calls “hobby emails” penned to his staff over a nine year period, the author writes about an interaction between Fu and himself in 1989 that showed Fu’s patriotism.
The chapter, titled “Patriotism pays” and written in May 2001, revealed how Liew wanted to headhunt Fu when he was recruiting Chinese engineers and scientists for the Singapore Institute at Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR).