New Hope Dairy, the dairy business of China billionaire Liu Yonghao’s New Hope Group, climbed by its 44% daily limit on the company’s trade debut at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday.
Liu Yonghao and his daughter Liu Chang own about 81% of New Hope Dairy, a stake worth 5.4 billion yuan, or about $795 million, as of Friday. Liu Yonghao has an estimated fortune of $5.1 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
If any single family of entrepreneurs in China embodies the course of 40 years of China’s economic reforms, it is the Liu family of Sichuan. They worked their way out of poverty by selling feed to farmers who were at the forefront of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the early 1980s. After 1995, when the family operation split up, two key brothers–Liu Yongxing and Liu Yonghao–seized opportunities of a new era, such as finance and resources. Liu Yongxing, who leads the East Hope Group, is worth $5 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
New Hope Dairy raised 465 million yuan during an IPO this month; the company will use the fund raises to, among other things, promote its brands.
New Hope Dairy’s interests extend beyond China. The company formed a joint venture with two Australian dairy farming families, the Perich family and the Moxey family, in 2015, according to the New Hope Group’s website. The joint venture, Australian Fresh Milk Holdings, owns Australia’s largest single site dairy production facility, New Hope Group says.
New Hope Group is one of China’s largest feed suppliers and agribusinesses. Shares in Liu’s main publicly traded company, Shenzhen-listed New Hope Liuhe, have lost abut 4% in the past year.
–with Maggie Chen
–Follow me @rflannerychina