When Zong Qinghou – at one time the richest person in China – died in February at 79, the battle to take over his Hangzhou Wahaha Group quickly descended into a drama worthy of the HBO series Succession.
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As Zong’s only child, Kelly Zong Fuli inherited her father’s multi-billion-dollar fortune, becoming the country’s wealthiest woman overnight. But gaining control of the sprawling food and beverage empire he had built from the ground up proved far more complex.
Kelly Zong was forced to fend off challenges from other figures within Wahaha, in a struggle filled with twists and turns that kept the public guessing for weeks.
The spectacle shone a light on a looming crisis facing China’s business dynasties. The first generation of the country’s entrepreneurs has reached old age, and their children are confronting the daunting task of taking over their parents’ work – running some of the most successful companies in the world’s second-largest economy.
Between 2017 and 2022, about three-quarters of the country’s family-owned companies reported succession issues, according to surveys from a research association under the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.
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That includes many of China’s most storied firms. More than 80 per cent of the entrepreneurs on the 2022 edition of the New Fortune 500 Rich List – a ranking of the country’s highest net worth individuals – were aged 50 or above, while 31 per cent were over 60 and 11 per cent were over 70.