From 16 A Month Factory Worker To Billionaire Real Estate Tycoon And One Of China S Richest Self Made Women The Wu Yajun Story

In 1993, Wu and her then-husband had a number of issues trying to buy their first apartment. There was a lack of natural gas, the lighting was bad, and the elevators rarely worked. This inspired her to create the real estate development company that would come to be called Longfor Properties. The couple started the company with an initial capital investment of 10 million yuan. The company is based in Hong Kong and operates in 47 Chinese cities. In 2017, it brought in revenue of $10.7 billion. In 1997, Longfor sold its first residential project in Wu’s hometown of Chongqing for $157 per square meter. That was more than twice the average Chinese household income at the time. Wu’s company was one of the first to develop shopping malls in China. As of 2017, Longfor estimates that 300 million people had visited its malls. Wu was the richest woman in China for years, then she lost nearly $3 billion in her divorce from her husband in 2012. Her ex-husband is no longer involved in any of Longfor’s business. That loss didn’t stop Wu. By 2017 she was the seventh-richest self-made female billionaire in the world with a net worth of $4.6 billion. Today, she is the richest self-made female billionaire in the world, with $8.3 billion to her name. That’s even richer than Diane Hendricks, the wealthiest self-made American female billionaire. In November 2018, Wu handed over her shares in Longfor to her daughter Cai Xinyi. At the time, the company said the transfer of control of her 44% stake was “for the purpose of family wealth and succession planning.” Cai will vote her shares according to her mother’s instructions.